Until 2023, our first documented Lois relative in Chile is Manuel Domingo Lois Baeza,who was born in Santiago in 1764.

His marriage to María del Rosario Saravia Donoso (1793- ) took place in the Church of the Sagrario in Santiago on April 14, 1810, five months before Chile declared its independence from Spain.

We believe his father, José Antonio Lois Nateirocame to Chile from Galicia, Spain. We would appreciate any information about him, his wife or his immediate descendant, Benigno Lois Saravia (1811- ). The latter married Tránsito Cañas Herrera (1823-1863) on August 27, 1843 in the Parroquia El Sagrario of Santiago.

Our Lois branch lived in the central zone of Chile until Juan Lois Cañas (1844-1913) married Raquel Fraga Cumplido inCopiapó, Atacama in 1873. Both his son Arturo Lois Fraga (1879-1963) and his grandson Juan Lois Perales were born in Atacama.

Juan Lois Perales (captain of the sailing ship El Calypso) was born in 1918 in Taltal, a mining town in northern Chile. His father, a doctor, was a Freemason and active in the anti-clerical movement. Juan, the fourth of six children, was still young when the family moved to Santiago. He became a doctor and his brothers, Darwin, an engineer, Voltaire, a lawyer and, later, politician and councilor of Santiago. Juan’s sister, Raquel Lois, was a social worker in the Chilean army and rose to the rank of general.

In 1948 Dr. Juan Lois Perales married Eliana Figueroa De la Jara Eliana Figueroa De la Jara. The oldest record that we have of his family is that of José Evaristo Figueroa Pantoja (1840-1936).

Eliana Figueroa De la Jara (1927-2016) was the third daughter of the Figueroa De la Jara family. The Figueroa-De la Jara family had moved to Santiago in the 1940s from southern Chile, where Adolfo Figueroa worked his land and a sawmill. Their mansion on the corner of Avenida Suecia and Providencia would later become the home of the Lois-Figueroa family in Santiago.

The Lois-Figueroa couple had six children, three boys and three girls. Three of them studied medicine in Chile. The eldest was a radiologist and the two older girls were pediatricians. The other two siblings earned doctorates in Biochemistry from UCLA. Jacqueline, the youngest daughter, studied anthropology at the University of Chicago.

The eldest daughter, María Eliana Lois (1949-2021) arrived in California in 1973. One daughter survives from their marriage. In 1974 Dr. Juan Lois Perales and his three sons sailed on the sailing ship ¨El Calypso¨ from Chile to California to visit his daughter Maria Eliana and decided to stay in the USA. The story of this adventure can be seen here.

The second daughter, and her husband, Felipe MU, have lived in Southern California since 1981. They have a son without offspring and a wife, also a pediatrician.

Of the youngest daughter, Jacqueline (1955-2023), a son survives.

Of the male siblings, there are surviving male children who bear the surname Lois in the USA and in Europe.

Sources and Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank RF Lois, the Captain’s grandson, for his excellent research, documentation and entry into the family tree on Webtrees. The account of the sailing trip is the work of his mother, Ana María C., in consultation with the participants.