I Spy a Spence

 One of the greatest ironies of my genealogical researchings is that the first people I started with are the last ones I will find.

Spens Tartan

Anyone will tell you to start your family history by interviewing your oldest relatives; in my case, that was my Auntie Grace Robertson and my grandmother Bessie Spence.  My two maternal grandparents were named Robertson and Spence.  Both are Scottish names;  Robertson is its own clan, and Spence/Spens is part of the MacDuff clan.   

Spence/Spens crest

Crest: A hart's head erased proper.
Motto	SI DEUS QUIS CONTRA (from Latin: If God is for us, who is against us").
Profile
Region	Fife.
Chief
Patrick Nathaniel George Spens.
The 4th Baron Spens.

Clearly, my mother was 100% Scottish.  Cue the bagpipes.  Oh, except for her lookalike Grandmother Acker; they were German.   

OK, 75% Scottish.  Then why were her Spence grandparents called Grannie and Grampa English?  Oh, because Grannie English was a descendant of the Loyalists and the Yorkshire Emigration and the Planter Migration - Rushton, Brown, Harrison, Ward, West, Scholfield, etc., all English with a bit of German, Coon, thrown in.

Now 50% Scottish.  But Mr. Robertson married into the Madden family, which was from Ireland.  And Mr. Spence was married to Elmira Pettigrew, whose grandparents came from Ireland also.  

All right, 25% Scottish.  By this time we are beginning to wonder if we are Scottish at all.  But I love bagpipes!

From looking at this chart, you can see that Bessie and her siblings Harmon, Eva, Arthur, Howard, Helena, etc., have the name Spence, a Scottish name.  But by the time you get to their great-great-grandparents, only one has the name Spence.   The other 15 are named Ward, Hall, Sparks, Richter, etc., English and Irish and German.  So even tho Bessie and siblings have a Scottish surname, they are only 1/16th Scottish, about 6%.  (Yes, I know that Deborah is named Spence and we don't know who her parents are, possibly changing the percentage.  More on that later).

Through DNA testing on Ancestry.com, we find that one of my children has 9% Scottish DNA.   One of the areas where they have many DNA relatives is Fife, Scotland, the place where the first Spences came from.  Helena's children are between 25% and 33% Scottish.   Does anyone hear "Scotland the Brave?"

Bagpipe Bands in Moray

If you look at the Spence chart again, you will notice another irony:  the only one without known parents is a Spence, Deborah Spence.  And everyone has arrows indicating parents on another chart except the Spences and Pettigrews.  And I can trace every ancestor's line into the 1700s, the Scholfields and Wests into the 1600s, except the Spences.  And I can trace 10 of the 16 back to Europe - not the Spences (or Sparks, Rushton, and Hall).

The same thing is going on with my Robertson family.  I know where everyone came from before Nova Scotia except Mr. and Mrs. Robertson.

Yes, we started with our oldest living relatives, the Spence sisters.   All the others came from their knowledge.  But the Spences are who we know the least about.

Oh and see where Samuel's parents, the earliest Spences we know, are Ebenezer and Margaret Merriam?  I don't think that's true.  So we know even less.

References:

Scotland the Brave by the Massed Bands on the march after the 2019 Dufftown Highland Games in Moray

https://www.ancestrycdn.com/dna/static/images/ethnicity/help/WhitePaper_Final_091118dbs.pdf

Regions of Scotland - Scottish-places.info

https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails?ref=3860

https://clan.com/family/spence

The following article is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Spens

Origins of the Name[edit]

The name Spens or Spence means "custodian" or "dispenser", possibly derived from Old French.

Origins of the Clan[edit]

The principal Scottish family of Clan Spens descend from one of the ancient Earls of Fife. John 'Dispensator' or 'Le Dispenser' appeared in a list of the tenants and vassals of Walter fitz Alan Steward of Scotland on the period 1161–1171. Roger 'Dispensator' witnessed a charter by Bricius de Douglas, the bishop of Moray granting the church of Deveth to Spynie between 1202 and 1222 . His son Thomas 'Dispensator' witnessed a charter in 1232 of Andreas de Moravia, later bishop of Moray. John Spens is listed as baillie of Irvine in 1260. In the year 1296 Henry de Spens, feudal baron, swore fealty to Edward I of England, and his name appears on the Ragman Rolls of 1296. He died around 1300, when his son, Thomas, succeeded. He is mentioned in two charters of King Robert the Bruce.