October | 2024 | nichepoetryandprose

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This year, I spent the months of August, September and October tracing the roots of my great-great-great-grandfather, William Spavold, and the origins of the Spavold family. I have used the services of Ancestry.ca in my search and thank the website and others who have studied the Spavold family before me.

I began with these bits of information:

William Spavold was born in Nottinghamshire in 1785 and died in 1815;
William married Eliza Greenfield in 1807;
William was a carpenter;
after William died, Eliza married John Adam Hill in 1816.

In my search, I soon encountered Spavolds in Nottinghamshire— many Spavolds. My tree, not yet available to the public, includes over 700 people, including spouses and some parents of spouses.

The earliest records are of three Spavold males: Anthony Spavalde (1500), an ‘Unknown Spavalde’ (1493-1552) (first name unknown), and a ‘Mr. Spavan,’ (given name also unknown). All three lived in the area of Gainsborough, in northern Lincolnshire, and may have been brothers or cousins. At the same time, there is also a family with the last name of Spafford living in the Collingham area, about 30 kms south of Gainsborough. The names Spavalde, Spavan and Spafford are so similar, I think the families were related to one another.

Anthony Spavalde married Alice and had a son Anthony, beginning at least seven generations of Spavolds. The Unknown Spavold married Maud of Gainsborough and had 3 sons and 1 daughter, beginning at least fourteen generations into the 1900s. Mr. Spavan had three sons and I have not yet been able to follow them into more generations. The Spafford family stayed in the Collingham area until the mid 1700s when some of the family had moved to Beckingham, near Gainsborough in northern Nottinghamshire; they also have more than fourteen generations into the 1900s.

The variable spelling of the name may have something to do with the difficulties tracing these families, but Ancestry.ca seems to be able to find records in spite of the various name spellings. ‘Spavold’ is an unusual name and has been listed in the various records as ‘Spaffield,’ ‘Spavin,’ ‘Spavald,’ ‘Spaviald,’ and so on. The ways of writing in the records and their tendency to use Latin phrases adds to the difficulties.

Screen capture of an early ‘Spavold’ record, from the ‘Nottinghamshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812’: shows the marriage William Spavold (born 1523, son of Unknown Spavold and Maud, see above) to Katherine Holte in 1540 in St. Bartholomew, Nottinghamshire, England. The text is difficult to read but fortunately most of these records have been transcribed by hard-working historians.

The families remained in the Gainsborough area for the first two or three generations, but by 1673 (family of Anthony) and 1583 (family of Unknown) had begun an outward migration to the nearby communities of Walkeringham and Misterton, both in Lincolnshire. By the fourth generation, with the marriage of Nicholai (1638), some of the families had shifted to the Everton area in northeastern Nottinghamshire and soon after to communities in eastern Yorkshire. The entire Spavold family, at least until the early 1800s remained in this group of communities in northern Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.

The process of finding these Spavolds has been made more difficult due to the predominance of the given names Thomas, William, Robert, Elizabeth, Mary and Anne in the various families. I still haven’t found William, my great-great-grandfather, but in the next post I will talk about how best to sort family members with the same name.

All my best,

Jane Tims (a. k. a. Spavold)

Written by jane tims

October 29, 2024 at 7:00 am

Posted in family history

Tagged with family history, family tree, history, Spavold Family Tree

Puzzling Over My Last Name

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When I was growing up, I often puzzled over my last name: ‘Spavold.’ No one else in the community where we lived had that name. I made up stories to answer folks who asked me about my surname: we were Polish; we were the only family in the world to ever have that name; we were Italian and the real name was ‘Spavoldini.’

My dad was also interested in the orgins of the name, but he took a more studied approach. He found out the name of the first Spavold to arrive in Nova Scotia and wrote a book about the many Spavolds in Nova Scotia who were descendants of that first ‘Spavold’ in Canada: Spavold’s Wald, S.W. Spavold, unpublished, about 1990.

The first Spavold in Nova Scotia was a boy of only 8 years, born in England in 1808. He arrived in a shipwreck of the Trafalgar on Briar Island on July 30, 1817. He came to Briar Island with his mother (Eliza Greenfield), his step-father (John Adam Hill) and his half-brother (Thomas Hill, a boy of two). The family survived the shipwreck and stayed in the Digby area of Nova Scotia. For more about this story, see my earlier post at https://janetims.com/2011/12/03/briar-island-rock-2-the-shipwreck/ .

My drawing of my great-great-great grandmother Eliza (Greenfield)(Spavold) Hill waiting on the rocks with her two boys after the shipwreck of the Trafalger.

William’s father, my great, great, great grandfather, was William Spavold, born in Nottinghamshire in England in 1785. In 1807, when he was 22 years old, he married Eliza Greenfield. He was a carpenter and my Dad’s story was that when he died, Eliza sold his carpenter tools to get passage for Canada on the Trafalger with her second husband John Hill.

No other information was available to my dad, although he did track down ‘Spavolds’ elsewhere in Canada, in Australia and in England. I talked on the telephone with Helen Spavold who lives in Clowne, Yorkshire, and she said, with a proud lilt in her voice, “There are Spavolds in our graveyard.” My dad, and my brother (who lived in Australia for a time), corresponded with Joseph Spavould, who lived in Australia.

Now, with the help of Ancestry.com, I am determined to find out more about William Spavold of Nottinghamshire. The next few posts will talk about my discovery of the occurrence of Spavolds in England in the 15^th, 16^th, 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. And in the 20^th and 21^st centuries—I am not alone.

All my best,

Jane Tims (a. k. a. Spavold)