I know a lot of us have Ebenezer Spence in our family trees. He doesn't exist.
( See Spence Pedigree Chart). Some people have even given him parents and a birthplace in Great Britain. As for his wife Margaret Merriam, she is doubtful too. Well, I guess there is an Ebenezer Spence in Britain, but he doesn't belong to us.
Just to recap, Ainsley, Murdock, Wesley, William Mariner, Palmer, Ellen, and Sam Spence (generation 4) are all the children of John William Spence and Ann Elmira Pettigrew (generation 3). I am color-coding the generations in the hope that it will lessen confusion.
John William, Reuben B., James Edward, George Francis, Samuel, Mary Ellen, Hannah Merriam, and Ella R. (generation 3) are all the children of Samuel Spence and Ellenor Rector (generation 2).
Who is Samuel Spence (gen. 2) the child of? Does he have any siblings? Looking at generations 3 and 4, with all those sons, he should have like 5 brothers. Is it any wonder there are so many Spences?
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Some of the oldest and youngest participants - Helena Spence Lynster and Connie Spence Thompson, daughters of Bill & Phoebe, and Erich Wendel, great-grandson of their sister Bessie Spence Robertson |
In 1995, we had a Spence Family Reunion in Springhill (Been there, done that, got the T-shirt). Besides having a lot of fun, marching in the Old Home Week parade and meeting tons of cousins we didn't know we had, we exchanged genealogical information. A book on the Spences had been written by Edna Best, a descendant of John Francis Spence who wanted to investigate any possible connections between our Spences and hers, and co-author Ed Myles. It is now in the Ottawa House By-the-Sea Museum in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. The book gives Samuel Spence gen 2's parents as Ebenezer Spence and Margaret Merriam (gen 1). Anna Jean, daughter of Howard and Nellie Spence, said this was wrong. But I didn't ask how she knew that.
Edna Best's Spence book also gives Samuel some siblings: Michael, Thomas, Deborah (who married Matthew Pettigrew), Mary, Daniel, and Ellen. The book clearly says that this is all speculation. I have new appreciation for Mrs. Best's problem, because it turns out that records from the early 1800s are sparse to non-existent. However, I have also learned that since Nova Scotia in 1800 was a fairly small colony, people with the same last name are most likely related, and if they are also in the same place, it may mean they are immediate family.
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Ottawa House By-the-Sea, Parrsboro, NS, Canada Day 2011
Edna Best also found the gravestone of Samuel Gen 2 in the Old St. George's Anglican Cemetery on Victoria Street in Parrsboro. Although barely readable and cracked, it is still standing.
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Some years ago, I found
Samuel's death record from September 15, 1874. It does in fact have his parents as
Ebenezer Spence and Margaret Merriam. Must be right then. I went on from there.
The ledger above is actually 2 lines across 2 open-facing pages. The columns are:
Number 125
Name Samuel Spence
Sex M
Age 60
Condition Married
Where born ---
Parents' Names, Occupation Ebenezer & Margaret Merriam farmer
Death Date, Place 15 Sept 1874 Parsboro
Cause ---
Informant Samuel Spence
The informant, Samuel Spence of Generation 3, is the dead man's son. He didn't know what his father died of or where he was born?
I set about happily looking for Ebenezer Spences. Didn't find any in Nova Scotia, where Samuel said he was born. Didn't find any Spences in the early 1800s at all. Didn't find any Margaret Merriams either. However, in looking at the large and well-documented Merriam family of Parrsboro, I found 3 Ebenezer Merriams. Ebenezer is not a common name. I began to think that Samuel Gen 3 was confused on his grandfather's name. Maybe he took a name out of his grandmother's family and put it on his grandfather. That wouldn't be the first time maternal and paternal info was switched like that - it has happened to me twice.
Also, it does not appear that any of the Spence progeny named any of their sons Ebenezer, at a time when naming children after their grandparents and other family members was the thing to do. And speaking of naming, we have 2 Hannah Merriam Spences and a Helena Mariam Spence. I always thought Merriam was a weird girl's name - not quite Miriam. Could they all be named after an original woman named Hannah, not Margaret, Merriam?
There are in fact 3 Hannah Merriams in the Merriam family, but no Margarets. However, none of these Hannah Merriams married a Mr. Spence.
The mystery is still very active. We still know hardly anything about Samuel Spence Gen 2's early life. But we do know, as of 2 days ago, who his father was not. He was not Ebenezer Spence.
Looking at the death record more carefully, we can see that it could very well be Ebenezer Spence and Margaret Merriam, maiden name. On the other hand, it could be Ebenezer Merriam and Margaret Merriam, married name. But why would their son be named Spence?
Then another intriguing anomaly caught my eye. A man named James Merriam died in Parrsboro a day apart from Samuel Spence, and is listed on the line below. Could the registrar have made a mistake? What were James Merriam's parents' names? Wait -- William King? Does that make any sense?
Like I said before, we know that the Merriam family is well documented. We know that James Merriam was a sea captain. We know that he came from a sea-faring family, father, uncles, brothers. Here his wife, the informant, says that he died at sea from sunstroke. We know that Captain James Merriam was the son of Ebenezer Merriam and Elizabeth Wright Lyons Merriam. (Like I said, no Margarets). There is no way that his father is a clerk in Halifax named William King.
So I looked at the next line and found - you guessed it - the death of William Burges King two days later. And who is the informant for Willliam Burges King? You guessed it again - William G. King. Surely they are father - son - grandson.
Then who are the parents listed for William Burges King? To complete the circle, William has Samuel Spence's parents. Merriam is in the mother column and Spence, blacksmith is in the father column.
I have been corresponding with Mallory Burton, who has an amazing website, Researching the Ripleys, with a lot of info about Cumberland County. She told me that the vital statistics listed in the ledgers, old as they are, are not the originals. The entries were actually written into ledgers later by a clerk. The originals were kept separately by town and filed by quarter. The originals are available to search, page by page for 864 pages.
And in the 1874 deaths in Parrsboro, Sept. quarter, I found the real death info for the 3 men - just as we thought. Unfortunately, Samuel Gen 2's parents are still pretty mysterious. His father (Generation 1)'s first name is blank, but at least he has a last name, Spence. Mr. Unknown Spence also has an occupation, blacksmith. His mother's name looks like Mirriam Spence as her married name, but the registrar's handwriting is atrocious.
This is also one ledger across two pages. This is what it says:
Person # 3
Name Samuel Spence
Sex Do (ditto)
Age 60
Condition Married
Where born _________
Parents' Names, Occupation __________& Mirriam Spence blacksmith
Date and place of Death 15 Sept 1874 Parrsboro
Cause of death Unknown
Informant Samuel Spence
When registered 28th Sept
Person # 4
Name James Merriam
Sex Do
Age 67
Condition Married
Where born Parrsboro
Parents' Names, Occupation Ebenezer & Margaret Merriam farmer
Date and place of Death 14 Sept 1874 at Sea
Cause of death Sun stroke
Informant Mrs. Jas. Merriam
When registered 28th Sept
Person # 5
Name W. Burgess King
Sex Do
Age 74
Condition Married
Where born Rawdon Hants Co.
Parents' Names, Occupation William King clerk in Haly onder?
Date and place of Death 17 Sept 1874 Parrsboro
Cause of death Natural decay
Informant W. G. King
When registered 29th Sept
Look at this as a cautionary reminder of how seriously to take records. We always need to look for corroborating information. In this case, this is the only info we have about Samuel's parents, but with only one piece of information, we have to take this as unproven.
We also need to look at what kind of records to take seriously. Death records are always suspect, because the information is by definition not given by the person the info is about. The older a person is, the further removed the informant is, the more likely the informant is to get facts about birth and parentage wrong. Plus, every time info is transcribed, there is a chance for error. In this case, I don't know how the poor clerk was able to read the registrar's handwriting at all!
So, all you Spence searchers, start over. Often, if a grandchild doesn't know his grandfather's name, it is because he never met him - he died young or stayed in the old country. But blacksmith is our only real clue.
Parrsboro Deaths 1874 - book 1805 - page 102 - #125.
https://archives.novascotia.ca/vital-statistics/death/?ID=11792
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89JJ-QCHD?i=183&cc=2242825&cat=241917
https://www.ottawahousemuseum.ca/
https://ripleyresearch.weebly.com/ripley-ancestors.html
https://workingtheflame.com/blacksmith-life-1800s/
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