Red River Ancestry

FAMILY PAGE LINK: GEORGE SPENCE (c1773-1859)

EileenR Posted Oct 3, 2011:
Hi, I've been researching George Spence (husband of Catherine) for about a year and a half now. He was my grandfather's great-grandfather, and I have a lot of extra information about him, as well as a few puzzling details to muddy the waters further.

George Spence is mentioned in the volume: "Saskatchewan Journals and Correspondence", published 1967 by the Hudson's Bay Record Society.

First, a footnote from the reprint’s editor, when listing the men who worked at Edmonton House in its first year:

George Spence, canoeman from 'Birsa' (Birsay, Mainland), Orkney Islands was born about 1773 and joined the Company in 1791 A. 30/7, FOS. 37, 81

According to the HBC archives site, A. 30. 1-17 are "Lists of HBC servants" from 1774 to 1841. These were official records kept in London, so I figured the information is pretty accurate.

Then he is mentioned directly in Tomison's Journal at Edmonton House, in an entry of February 12, 1796. (pp. 24-25)

“At 1:00 p.m. Robert Garson and George Spence arrived from Buckingham House, brought eight guns, a few small articles and a little worthless medicine-box containing a bottle of hartshorn froze useless, one bottle of Turlington, one bottle of lavender, a small bottle of tincture of rhubarb, jalap 1 lb good-for-nothing, ipecacuanha ½ lb, Glauber salts 2 lbs, sulphur 2 lbs, basilicon 2 lbs, powder orfrhubarb ¼ lb., Spanish juice 2 lbs, 4 oz. strengthening plaster, 5 gallipots, 24 small vials, some corks for ditto, a part of one old sheet and as much lint as would dress a common wound six times.

An Indian has been waiting here two days for medicines ,or ten beaver but I cannot give him any as those articles he wants have not been received; medicines of late years has been very much curtailed and I do not know for what reason. God knows I have never made a bad use of whatever has been under my hands. Since my first settling Hudson’s House there has been upon an average 100 beaver traded yearly for that commodity by me, but this year there will be none.

Tomison was a legendarily difficult person to work with, as can be seen from this entry.

The next winter 1796-97 found George Spence again at Buckingham House, under the command of Peter Fidler. We know this from an editor’s footnote in the Saskatchewan Journals , listing the winter complement at the post. (pg. 65 n. 3) The editor references the Buckingham House post journals for this information, but those journals reside in the HBC archives and have never been published.

Back to George's birth date. Using the HBC record, I was able to narrow down date of birth when I looked at the baptismal records for the surname Spence for the Orkney parishes

http://www.cursiter.com/txt-exe-files/Spence.txt

, and found

George SPENCE (M)..................... C: 23 Mar 1772
Father: George SPENCE Birsay, Orkney, Scotland
Mother: Isabel MOWAT

I have lots more material on Spence, but I have to run to get to work, and I've realized my files are really disorganized, so I'll have to lay out the rest later.

Thanks for the wonderful service you've given us.

Eileen R, Edmonton

I have James SPENCE (1753-1795) (not George) with TOMINSON at Buckingham House during 1792-1795 (from HBC Archives). Go to my Ancestors page, on the list there click on James SPENCE to see what I have.

I'm interested in your own lineage back to George. Could you provide that?

Yes, it caused a lot of confusion to my family sorting out the Spences when they first started looking into family history. A relative got the wrong George Spence: the son of James Spence and Nestichio Batt, and the mix of different details was pretty confusing.

Since it appears that my George Spence came from the same parish in Orkney: Birsay, I'd imagine that he and James Spence were related, cousins at some degree, though obviously they never met in Orkney, James having left Birsay nearly the year George was born.

I'm descended from George Spence via his daughter Catherine's marriage to Charles Begg. Their son Duncan Finlayson Begg worked for the Company as well, as your biography notes. After trying his hand at farming in Mapleton and running a hotel, the family settled in Rat Portage. Duncan's son: James Rutherford Begg married a Metis woman: Jemima Muggaberg. Their daughter Marguerite Begg married Albert Lavoie, who was part French Canadian, part Scottish-Irish. My maternal grandfather Douglas Lavoie was their eldest child. He's still alive today, age 91.

My grandfather was very close to his mother's family: the Beggs, and can remember sitting down every Sunday dinner with his great-grandfather Duncan at the table, and yet he never knew anything about their fur-trading background.

I've been to Mapleton once: to visit the graveyard of St. Clement's, where I saw a few family graves. It was a good day for mosquitoes, I recall.

A few years back I exchanged Emails with Allen Lawrence LAVOIE, son of Lawrence LAVOIE who was probably your mother’s uncle. I have a fair amount of info on the LAVOIE family that I received from him. Unfortunately, I lost the emails that he sent me (as well as some pictures).

It looks like I’m not the only one having problems with the SPENCE ancestry. One of my sisters-in-law descended from George SPENCE; another sister-in-law descended from James SPENCE, so we’re interested in both.

EileenR wrote:Yes, it caused a lot of confusion to my family sorting out the Spences when they first started looking into family history. A relative got the wrong George Spence: the son of James Spence and Nestichio Batt, and the mix of different details was pretty confusing.

Since it appears that my George Spence came from the same parish in Orkney: Birsay, I'd imagine that he and James Spence were related, cousins at some degree, though obviously they never met in Orkney, James having left Birsay nearly the year George was born.

I'm descended from George Spence via his daughter Catherine's marriage to Charles Begg. Their son Duncan Finlayson Begg worked for the Company as well, as your biography notes. After trying his hand at farming in Mapleton and running a hotel, the family settled in Rat Portage. Duncan's son: James Rutherford Begg married a Metis woman: Jemima Muggaberg. Their daughter Marguerite Begg married Albert Lavoie, who was part French Canadian, part Scottish-Irish. My maternal grandfather Douglas Lavoie was their eldest child. He's still alive today, age 91.

My grandfather was very close to his mother's family: the Beggs, and can remember sitting down every Sunday dinner with his great-grandfather Duncan at the table, and yet he never knew anything about their fur-trading background.

I've been to Mapleton once: to visit the graveyard of St. Clement's, where I saw a few family graves. It was a good day for mosquitoes, I recall.

Hi EileenR

I am researching my husbands family tree for the past few years and you two are definitely related. My husband is Lee Lajeunesse, son of Evelyn Haney and Ernest Lajeunesse. Evelyn's parents were Lloyd Haney and Ada Begg, Ada was the daughter of James and Jemima. I have a fair amount of information on the Begg family, but so far not so much on the Spence branch. I would be willing to share anything we have. Look forward to hearing from you soon.

scarey

EileenR wrote:Yes, it caused a lot of confusion to my family sorting out the Spences when they first started looking into family history. A relative got the wrong George Spence: the son of James Spence and Nestichio Batt, and the mix of different details was pretty confusing.

Since it appears that my George Spence came from the same parish in Orkney: Birsay, I'd imagine that he and James Spence were related, cousins at some degree, though obviously they never met in Orkney, James having left Birsay nearly the year George was born.

I'm descended from George Spence via his daughter Catherine's marriage to Charles Begg. Their son Duncan Finlayson Begg worked for the Company as well, as your biography notes. After trying his hand at farming in Mapleton and running a hotel, the family settled in Rat Portage. Duncan's son: James Rutherford Begg married a Metis woman: Jemima Muggaberg. Their daughter Marguerite Begg married Albert Lavoie, who was part French Canadian, part Scottish-Irish. My maternal grandfather Douglas Lavoie was their eldest child. He's still alive today, age 91.

My grandfather was very close to his mother's family: the Beggs, and can remember sitting down every Sunday dinner with his great-grandfather Duncan at the table, and yet he never knew anything about their fur-trading background.

I've been to Mapleton once: to visit the graveyard of St. Clement's, where I saw a few family graves. It was a good day for mosquitoes, I recall.

Hi there
Your great grandmother Rita (that's what we always called her) and my grandmother, Kathleen were sisters and very close. I have a lovely photo of the both of them. Doug & Marie were very close to our family. My mother Margarie, passed away last year. I'm in contact with Marie...an amazing woman. Your grandfather not in good health now....thinking of them often...

In order to avoid confusion, here’s the link to the Family Page for this George SPENCE which in turn provides links to some of the other families being discussed here. Here again is the link:
GEORGE SPENCE (c1773-1859)

Any photos that could be added to these Pages are welcomed, and if suitable will be added. Send them to me as Email attachments.