309. Speers

Outline

1. Henry Speers (d. bef. 1778) m. Reganah Froman (d. aft. 1784); Westmoreland Co., Pa.
2. Reganah Speers (d. bef. 1821) m. ca. 1786 Joshua Owings (ca. 1764–1817); Bourbon Co., Ky.

Sources

The wife of Joshua Owings is not named in the will of Henry Speers, which names only his wife, a daughter Elizabeth, and son-in-law Samuel Frye by name. The most widely circulated abstract is Mary Ellison Wood, Abstracts of Wills in Westmoreland County, Registered at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania 5 (1912–4): 326-50, at 327, from 1:9. Nor is a daughter Reganah named in the basic printed description of the Spears family: John S. Van Voorhis, The Old and New Monongahela (Pittsburgh, 1893; reprint, Baltimore: Clearfield Company, Inc., 1991), 268, 271, 435-7. Joseph F. Spears, The Spears Saga (Alexandria, Va., 1982), 26, disputes that Henry had any daughters beyond those named in his will and by Van Voorhis: Rebecca, Mary, Christina, and Elizabeth.

Reganah’s identification in Donnell MacClure Owings, The History of the Owings Family (Norman, Okla., 1968), 102, seems to rest on her placement as a sister of Jacob and Solomon Spears, of Bourbon County, Kentucky, and on onomastic evidence. Joshua Owings had children named Henry and Reganah, and Henry had a son Solomon. In previous generations of the Owings family, the first was rare and the latter two were unknown. Her placement would be more secure if a report were found to the effect that she was known during her lifetime, or to her children and grandchildren, as a sister of Jacob and Solomon Spears. Unfortunately, no such report has yet been located.

Related surnames

77. Owings

No further information on the Froman family is available at this time.