MMF George Spence - which one, where?

[Merry]

I had hoped for a notice with more information!

The York Herald, and General Advertiser (York, England), Saturday, April 06, 1850

Same day (Monday, 1st inst.), at the Registrar's office, York, Mr. George Spence, groom, to Miss Gardner, both of this city.

[Janet]

Wow, you're on a tear, Merry!

I've been hunting Jesse too, can't find anything. But I can't make it read as anything but Jesse, can you?

[Janet]

Oh gees. Sounds more like a temper tantrum than attempted suicide to me!

Think I have to claim him. I know there are a lot of George Spences, but mine was on the 1881 census at 8 Chapel Square in Headingley. It has to be great-grandad.

So he was actually working at Aireside Foundry when it was reported to the census enumerator that he was an unemployed coachman. I'm beginning to suspect he did a lot of creative tale-telling. How will I ever find his tracks?




Oh, yeah, it's him. She went and got him.

[Janet]

Was Elizabeth Spence (the future Mrs Boynton) mistranscribed as Spencer? Or maybe even the enumerator got it wrong. If she was born about 1842, though, she should be 9 or 10, not 14. Could she be shaving something off her age later on, and could this be the real story, i.e., born about 1837, possibly before civil registration?

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?h...=&pid=10894867

There is this one:
Births Mar 1838
SPENCE Elizabeth York 23 610

Alternatively, could she be tacking on a few years to make herself older for work? If (big if...) this were the right Elizabeth, then she should turn up on the 1841, 3 years old, but I can't find her.

Tell me where I'm going wrong! Got to go to bed. Back in a good few hours.

[Merry]

Well done for finding those newspaper articles. I'm embarrassed to say I saw the frst one, but dismissed it because of the occupation without checking the address he was at in 1881

I'm a bit confused by your last post. We know there are two Elizabeth Spences (and three birth regs!)

The 1851 shows both of them.....

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?h...=&pid=10897367

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?h...=&pid=10890433

They both appear in 1861 (first one with parents again and the second as a servant.)

I haven't been able to find both of them in 1871....only the one who would seem to be the younger and marries soon after. Ah, I see - you are thinking this is when her age became reduced (if she is the older one and likely George's sister) and the other one was either dead or married before 1871?

[Janet]

It's probably not you I'm confusing so much as myself, Merry! I'm on my last legs here and have caught myself snoozing lightly at the keyboard, so I might have to leave you to figure out what the heck I'm talking about until I wake up in the morning!

I've only just seen that I'm going back over ground that you already covered. You had already posted that 1838 registration.

[Janet]

I'm sorry, Merry! Of course I'm sitting up trying to figure out something sensible and I can't! lol

But just to reiterate what I guess I thought you were saying: A while ago you seemed to say you had found Mrs Boynton on the 1871 and the 1861, you just couldn't find her on the 1851.

I guess I thought you meant this one with a Waude family in 1871:
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?h...=&pid=25421698
and this one with a Briggs family in 1861:
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?h...=&pid=11788722

Am I following you or have I completely lost the plot?

I really truly am going to bed now.

[Merry]

Yes, that's right and I did say I couldn't find her in 1851 (I could only find the dau of Wm and Eliz with her parents). However, I did find an appropriately aged Elizabeth in 1851 eventually

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec?h...=&pid=10890433

with her unmarried mother, Helen (Ellen). The reason I didn't find her the first time is that Ancestry have transcribed her place of birth as Yorkshire, but the census page says York, Yorkshire and I was searching for York only!!

Helen/Ellen came from the same small place Wm (who we are lining up to be George's father) did. I guess regardless of whether the marriage for Elizabeth Spence to John Boynton is George's sister, or some sort of cousin or whatever, I do think it quite likely we are associating George with the right William Spence. It's just proving it that seems tricky.

[kiterunner]

I still think that getting a full transcription or image of that George Spence baptism would be a good idea.

[Merry]

True. It would be nice if they had accidentally transcribed the word Ann where it actually says Elizabeth though!!