Many thanks, lynnsellers, for the info in your attachment – I have added new bits to my family details. Sorry about the delay in replying, we’ve been on holiday.
I will attach the birth and marriage certificates for Francis Spencer b 1846, which I bought thinking he was my great great grandfather, rather than (I think) my great grandfather’s half-brother.
One thing I am doubtful about is the death of Wright Hall [b1825]. I can’t find him in the 1841 census, so the 1829 burial in Sutton given by Larkspur (burial at Sutton on 18-8-1829 of Wright Spencer abode Sutton aged 5) seems to me to be more likely than the event you gave - 1848, Basford registration district.
Also I think that the “Unknown Spencer, daughter of Francis Spencer Jr and Ellen Matilda Appleyard born on 29 Mar 1869 in Balbriggan” is probably Ellen Spencer who married Henry Hoey (25, writing clerk, of Railway Station House, father Henry Hoey, station master) at St George's, Balbriggan on 29 May 1888; Ellen is 19, living at Skerries St, with father Francis Spencer. [I saw this entry in the marriage register]
Henry and Ellen are living in Dungannon, Tyrone in 1901 census; in Lusk, Dublin in 1911 census.
John Hall (?christened 1766 Arnold) married Dorothy; as well as Mary they also had a daughter Ann Hall, christened 26 Nov 1791 in Annesley. This Ann is a ggg grandmother on my maternal grandmother’s side, whilst Mary Hall is a ggg grandmother on my maternal grandfather’s side – quite a neat coincidence.
No, we live in the West Midlands, England, not Ireland. We spent a week in Dublin visiting the Representative Church Body Library (for Church of Ireland parish records), Valuation Office, GRO Ireland, various libraries, and a day at Balbriggan, in the hope of sorting out who Wrighthall Spencer’s father was, but just ended up with a different unverified possibility and a dreadful cold! (Did a little bit of tourism too). I spent the first few years of my life in Sutton in Ashfield, then lived in a village next to Annesley Woodhouse, till my parents moved away from Nottinghamshire; I still have some relatives in the Sutton area.
Did Eliza Letitia’s family stay in Michigan? Interesting that Sarah Anne and George also went to America. I remember my mother talking about the problems caused by the Black and Tans in Balbriggan, which I couldn’t understand as Wrighthall was living in Nottinghamshire by then, but presumably she had been told about Robert, his brother, emigrating to California to get away from the anti-English feeling.
So, I now have lots of information about the families which I think are part of my family tree, but still nothing to prove that Francis Spencer, baptised in Sutton in 1820, is the father of my great grandfather Wrighthall Spencer. I need the marriage of Francis Spencer to Mary Hardy/Harding, probably Sutton, Nottinghamshire or Ireland, between 1862 and 1866 (or 1876 when the 2 children were baptised), but can’t find one. It would be great to find deaths for Francis and Mary too.