RootsChat.Com

This is the house where Francis Spencer b1846 lived - 2nd from the right hand end of this terrace in Hampton St (sometimes described as Skerries St).

Thanks very much for encouraging me to have another look at the deaths. That definitely looks like the right Susan in 1927 - I hadn't realised that the 2nd initial is the initial of the spouse, and the 70 is the right code for Los Angeles. I'm used to looking at English records but not American ones.
I still can't see any Robert the right age for someone born about 1870. Have tried looking for Spence too, and at later dates, and the nearest I have found is:
Spencer, Robert, spouse ME, aged 60 years, died 2 Feb 1930 in San Fransisco.
Do you think this is likely? Can't find a 2nd marriage.
If I could find the right one, would a death certificate of this time give information about the birthplace of the 2 parents, which is what I really want to know?

Thanks for that suggestion.  According to Ancestry, the Riverside Robert Spencer was a poultry farmer, which seems very different from his previous occupations of hosier in Ireland then machinist in California, but perhaps such things did happen.  And how did his change of wife come about?  I haven’t found a death for Susan in California, nor did I find a naturalisation record for her.  Did women usually go through the naturalization procedure in the 1920s?  Perhaps she didn’t like her new life and returned to Ireland? 

Alternatively, I have found a Robert Spence in the 1901 and 1906 Canadian censuses, born in Ireland about 1870, married to Jane and living at Manitoba. Could it be this family that later moved to Riverside?   

‘My’ Robert Spencer is the brother of my great grandfather Wrighthall Spencer, and I have been trying for years to find out about their parents, Francis Spencer and Mary Hardy / Harding (name is different on the 2 birth certificates).  The 1920 census says that Francis and Mary were both English, which I didn’t know before.  I hoped that if I could get Robert’s death certificate then this might give more details of his parents, but as usual things aren’t that straightforward!

Yes, I had wondered about that death.  I got excited when we visited Balbriggan Library at the end of our week in Ireland and were shown a transcript that included:
Francis Spencer; age at death 76; buried at Balrothery on 5th August 1895; address at death Balbriggan.
When I later compared this with Civil Registration records I decided that the age must have been mis-transcribed.  However, I emailed the Vicar of Balbriggan to ask about the whereabouts of registers of baptisms after 1887, marriages in the 1860s and burials.  He managed to get find the registers of baptisms at Balbriggan and burials at Balrothery, and promised to deposit these at the Church Representative Body Library (where I had checked other records) for safe-keeping.  (Couldn’t find any marriages, unfortunately).  He also confirmed that the register entry did give the age at death as 76, so maybe there is an error in the Civil Registration indexes.

Two points against this idea that our Francis died aged 76 in 1895:
1. The Balbriggan transcripts also included this baptism:
Lily Francis Spencer, born 28 Oct 1888, baptised 29 October 1888, parents Joseph and Margret Spencer of Courtlough.  However, I have just found her and her parents in Kinsealy in the 1901 census, so it can’t be her and must now discount this idea.
2, Francis Spencer wasn’t crossed out of the Rate Revision books (at the Valuation Office) until 1899, although there were alterations between 1895 and 1899.  This could just have been inefficient administration though.

On balance, it looks as though it may be worth one of us getting that death certificate.  Do you want to buy a copy, or shall I?

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.