Mary Elizabeth Spiers

PROOF CLASS: FATHER = ARGUMENT (Owen, 25 Oct 2026) - John Spears/Spiers: her son Asa's 1935 death certificate gives her maiden name as Spears; the 1840 and 1850 Hancock censuses and the 1870 state census. Register K1084, K1296-K1299. PROOF CLASS: MOTHER = ARGUMENT (Owen, 25 Oct 2026) - Lourany, wife of John Spears in 1850, born c.1801 Tenn.; the same argument as for John. Her maiden name Perry is compiled only and not entered. Register K1084, K1296-K1299. AUDITED 25 Oct 2026 - PARENTS ENTERED: John Spears or Spiers (b. c.1799 Ga., farmer of Hancock County, Mississippi) and his wife Lourany (b. c.1801 Tenn.). The records of the 1840s-1870s write the name Spears; the tree keeps Spiers, the family's later spelling. Mary married William Jarrell about 1844 and is the mother of [138] Wiley Green Jarrell. THE QUESTION. Who were the parents of [181] Mary Elizabeth, wife of [140] William Jarrell of Hancock County, Mississippi, born there about 1822, died 1887? THE EVIDENCE. (1) The death certificate of her son Asie (Asa) Jarrell, Allen Parish, Louisiana, 23 Feb 1935 (K1296, read on the image): father "Bill Jarrell", born Miss.; mother's maiden name "Polley Spears", born Miss.; informant his wife, Mrs Della Jarrell. (2) The 1870 Mississippi state census of Hancock County, p. 53 (K1297, names read on the image): a run of Jarrell names in which Mary is followed by James, Bradley, Joseph, George, Mary, Sylvester, Roderick, Samuel, Asa, Martha, Lurany and Wiley - the children of William and Mary in birth order, Asa beside [138] Wiley. (3) The 1850 census of Hancock County (K1084, read on the image): William Jarrald, 37, and Mary, 27, both born Hancock, with five small sons; in the next dwelling John Spears, 51, farmer, born Georgia, and Lourany, 49, born Tennessee, with ten Mississippi-born children aged 23 to 8. (4) The 1840 census of Hancock County (K1299, index tallies only): John Spears's household of 13 includes one free white female aged 15-19. (5) The only other Spears of parent age in Hancock in 1850 was Anderson Spears, 52, born S.C. (K1298, index): his children were born in Georgia c.1834-37 and Alabama c.1840-48. THE CORRELATION. Asa's certificate gives Mary's maiden name as Spears; Polley is the usual pet form of Mary, and the 1870 state census places Asa among her children, so the certificate is about her. She was born in Mississippi about 1822. Of the two Spears couples of parent age in Hancock in 1850, Anderson's family reached Mississippi only about 1848, after Mary was grown and married. John and Lourany were in Hancock with Mississippi-born children from about 1827. In 1840 their household held a girl of 15-19, the right age for Mary before her marriage of about 1844; in 1850, after it, the Jarrells lived next door. Mary named a daughter Lurany (K1297), and Alexander of the 1850 Spears household also named a daughter Lurana (K1088). THE CONFLICTS. (a) The maiden name rests on ONE informant, a daughter-in-law writing 48 years after Mary's death, on a certificate that also gives Asa's birth year wrongly as 1850 (his age, 75, and every census say 1859). A search for a second child's death record naming the mother found none online and none naming a different woman (K1309). (b) The 1850 and 1840 censuses state no relationships, and the 1840 figures were read from the index, not the image. (c) Lourany's maiden name, Perry, comes only from a compiled, uncited family site (spiers.net) and is not entered. (d) A compiled DRT application said to give John's death as 11 Mar 1889 could not be found (K1300); the FamilySearch tree gives 11 Nov 1889. THE CONCLUSION. Father and mother: ARGUMENT, John Spears/Spiers and his wife Lourany. No surviving record states the relationship outright: Hancock County's records before 1853 were lost, so no marriage bond, will or deed from Mary's youth survives, and no estate of John Spiers d. 1889 was found in the county's administration and deed books (K1085, K1086, K1089). What would overturn it: a record naming a different maiden name for Mary, or placing another Spears couple in Hancock County about 1822. What would strengthen it: the Mississippi death certificate of Charles Jarrell (d. 1926) or Louraney Victoria Harrell (d. 1935), both ordered, not online.