Hi Captain Blood,
I am a descendant of Thomas Spencer also born in Wicklow 1816 - he arrived a few years later than Paul in 1841. For some years a group of us with a public Ancestry tree have made a leap of faith and included Paul in the tree as Thomas' brother. Tree address is
http://trees.ancestry.com.au/tree/25668534/familyLike you we have had no luck in the Irish records.Wicklow and particularly Arklow were pretty much entirely destroyed in 1922 fire.
Recently a number of us attached to the above tree have indulged in Ancestry DNA.
Our hope is to find a Spencer match outside Australia.
I remembered this post and one of the others in the group had referenced it back in 2010.
I thought you might be interested in joining us in the DNA project.
It would determine whether Paul and Thomas were related and better still give a wider baseline for potential DNA matches if they are related.
I don't want to put a direct contact address here but you could contact me through the tree above.
I am not the tree owner but he was the person who had referenced your post so he will direct the enquiry to me.
If you are a Spencer relative we are having a 175th anniversary reunion in September.
