The Heaps/Spencers: AKA I'm My Own Grandpa

Oh boy let me tell you what a struggle sorting out this side of my family is. This will just be a short post on getting on the connections sorted out, I will post stories about each person/couple in more detail separately later.

I was originally trying to do a story on Joseph Spencer and Mary Cragg, my 4th-great grandparents on my paternal grandmothers side. The first issue is when I noticed Mary Cragg is my 4th-great grandma twice and my 5th-great grandma at one point. Needless to say, I was confused. I started trying to determine if their was an error in my records, or the church records, or an error anywhere! I didn't understand what was going on. But thanks to a buddy in my research group, the US West Genealogy Research Community, we got it sorted and discovered there was no error...just an extremely weird set of events and marriages that let's just say...they didn't travel far from the shallow end of the gene pool.

To understand all of this I have decided to create a visual aid. Prepare for the most amazing Microsoft Paint skills you have ever seen.

Can a girl draw or what? Anyway, the stuff in the black lines is what I want you to look at. Notice that Mary Cragg appears three times. She was married to William Heaps first, and then he stole a deer from the king and ran away, never to be seen again (more on that in a later story). Together they had Henry Heaps and Thomas Heaps.

After William ran away, Mary married Joseph Spencer and he pretty much took in all the kids. So Henry and Thomas are brothers. Henry is my 3rd-great grandpa, Thomas is my 4th-great grandpa. And their step-brother is Joseph Spencer Jr, who is my 3rd-great grandpa. And they all come from Mary Cragg, who as mentioned, is my double 4th-great grandma and my 5th great-grandma. which means that the lines before Mary Crag (i.g. her parents/grandparents/etc) are duplicated three times in my ancestry.

Apparently all the boys got along, because Henry, Thomas, and Joseph Jr. all immigrated to Escalante, Utah together. There Henry had a son named Henry Jr. And Thomas had a daughter named Mary Elizabeth, who had a daughter named Eliza Alice. And Henry Jr. married Eliza Alice, his 1st cousin once removed.

And that's probably why I'm so weird right?