Sponagle Family in Canada

This website documents the genealogy of the Sponagle family in Canada.

By far the majority of the people in Canada with the Sponagle name (with that spelling) are descendants of John Philip and Anna Maria Spannagel. This family arrived in Halifax in 1751 aboard the ship, Murdoch, as part of a group of immigrants known as the Foreign Protestants who were brought to Nova Scotia to solidify British control over the province. They later moved to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, shortly after it was founded in June 1753 (see here).

Also amongst the founding settlers of Lunenburg were Andreas and Ursula Spannagel. They arrived in Halifax in 1751 aboard the ship, Gale, and moved to Lunenburg in 1753. This family moved away from Nova Scotia around 1761, most likely to Philadelphia. (Elaine Jeter, a researcher in the US, found a document in Pennsylvania that refers to Andreas and Ursula Spannagle living in Philadelphia in 1765. She concluded that there is very little doubt that they went first to Philadelphia, but Andreas seems to have died in Frederick County MD.)

Sources

The information presented here is primarily an aggregation of material available from public sources, which are summarized here.

An analysis of most of the relevant census data can be found here.

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