Spence/Beedon

[erthomas]

This line is relatively new for me.  I have William Spence and Jane Beedon marrying on 13 Feb 1797 in Rushen.  I dont have years of birth, places, or parents for either but their children are:

William 1797
Martha 1799
Mary 1801
Robert 1805-1858
Ann 1807
Elizabeth 1809
Martha 1811

erin

[rcorris]

My guess would be that William Spence came from somewhere else as there are no burials for SPENCE(R) before an infant Martha in 1809 (see www.lawsons.ca) and of those burials that indicate a date of death the earliest approximate birth date is 1779 (Margaret Spence buried 1846 aged 67).  The earliest legitimate birth entries on the IGI are William and Jane's children.

Pretty much the same thing with BEEDON - earliest burial is Anne (no age given) 1790 and the earliest that provides an age indicated an approximate birth date of 1779 (Edward Beedon buried 1819 aged 40 - probably son of Patrick and Martha).  The earliest legitimate birth entries on the IGI are the children of Patrick Beedon and Martha Munds/Muns/Munch.  No marriage entry exists for Patrick and Martha though both are in the burials index (Martha bd 1799, Patrick bd 1822).  Jane is not listed amongst their children but, if she is their daughter, perhaps she was born before the family arrived in IOM or perhaps she is Patrick's little sister or cousin etc.

Perhaps their families both came out when William and Jane were children, but I think it likely that neither was born there.  You would expect them to be on the IGI (most of the IOM is pretty well covered) otherwise.

I would suggest you check out all the entries for Beedon and Spence on the Island - IGI online, Lawsons.ca, also Manx Notebook (http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/) and try to map out both families.  Also, do a search on the IOM genealogy message board (http://www.isle-of-man.com/cgi-bin/interests/genealogy/bulletin/index.pl). They are both uncommon enough for this to be manageable and will help.

Good luck,
Ruth

[erthomas]

Thanks Rith,
I use other manx sites regularly and I did post this question on the boards at isle-of-man.com too, just a little delayed from this one. 

erin

[erthomas]

after lookin for the marriage on lds it looks like he husband may have been John and not William.  How can i find out what name is correct or if I am even looking at the right marriage?

erin

[rcorris]

You would need to look at the original registry entry for the marriage.  There are two sources:

- the 1911 Rolls Office copy (made from the original parish registers in 1911 to create a copy to be held at the civil registry) which is what the IGI is indexed from.  These are the microfilms referred to in the IGI entry, so for John Spence m Jane Beedon the source call no is 0106743 and this is the film to request from your local LDS family history centre to see this marriage entry.  Each of the baptismal entries will have a similar source call no.

- the original parish registers which are held by the Manx National Heritage Museum.  I believe with the exact date you can request a copy of the original entry, but they only accept pounds sterling so you might have to arrange an international money order or engage a UK genealogy researcher to submit the request for you.

The entries for these earlier events won't give you much extra information but will help you to confirm the names of the parties.  Keep in mind that in most cases the person themselves did not write down their own name and so errors can occur.  Given that all the children are listed with William Spence as the father I think it likely that the use of "John" in the 1797 marriage is incorrect, or perhaps there is a first name/middle name confusion happening.  I would be fairly confident that they are the same person - but you may never be able to prove it.

Ruth