I was wondering if a kind soul who has access to the Birr Castle Archives, or perhaps the calendar of the archives, could possibly help with the following:-
From a summary of the Rosse Papers which are held in the Birr Castle Archive, it appears that there is some genealogical information relating to the SPRIGGE family which married into the PARSONS family, Earls of Rosse, in the 18th century.
The summary can be found here:-
https://birrcastle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SummaryList-of-the-Calendar-of-the-Rosse-Papers.pdf...and on p.160, in the "Letters and papers of the 6th Earl and Anne, Countess of Rosse", it says,
FAMILY HISTORY
"Letters to the 6th Earl and Anne Countess of Rosse, some of them from Thomas U. Sadleir of the Office of Arms, Dublin Castle, and papers (many of them inherited from the 6th Earl’s uncle, the Hon. Geoffrey L. Parsons [see T/10]), about Parsons, Boleyn, Savage and Sprigge genealogy and family history..."
I would be very grateful to find out the extent of the information relating to the SPRIGGE family history in these papers, and whether the calendar fully captures the information. I am living in Australia, so a personal visit is not practical for myself at this time, and the calendar is too expensive for a purely speculative purchase.
The Birr Castle website, with information about visiting the archives can be found here:-
https://birrcastle.com/archives/My specific family interest is to find siblings, or ancestor information, relating to William SPRIGGE (1638-1735), who was the father of:-
Mary SPRIGGE (b. 1709)
Margaret SPRIGGE (b. c.1711)
Mary SPRIGGE married Sir Laurence PARSONS, 3rd Baronet of Birr, on 5 Sep 1730, in Clonfert.
Mary and Margaret were the sole heirs of William SPRIGGE, so William is not my ancestor, but I suspect William SPRIGGE may have had a brother who might have been my ancestor. His only known sibling at this time is Lucy SPRIGGE, who married Peter HOLMES of Peterfield.
The earliest ancestor in this line I have proven at this time, is a John SPRIGG (b. c.1710 - d.1774), Gentleman of Waterford, who would seem to have been a likely cousin of Mary and Margaret, so any mention or connection to this John SPRIGG would be of particular importance.
Any further information on the siblings of William SPRIGGE, or his ancestors, or on John SPRIGG of Waterford, which might be available in the Birr Castle Archives would be of great interest.
Kind regards,
Marc Roberts
