Mission call to ireland leads couple to ancestral home and family records
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George and Ina Speer, retirees from Brentwood, Calif., welcomed their call to Northern Ireland as missionaries, inasmuch as all four of Elder Speer's grandparents were born here.
During his youth, Elder Speer frequently heard family stories about beautiful Rosebrook, Bovevagh and the Roe Valley. His mother's silverware even displayed the family crest of "Rosewood."After Elder and Sister Speer arrived in Ballymena, they began taking their preparation days to pursue research regarding Rosebrook and Elder Speer's ancestors, by the name of Douglas. A beginning point in their search was a letter Elder Speer brought with him, a letter directed to his mother from the Limavady law office of Martin, King, French and Ingram, regarding rents on the old family lands. There he was given access to a box containing documents pertaining to important legal transactions related to the Rosebrook estate.
An ordinance survey map found in the Ballymena library gave the location of "Rosebrook," in Bovevagh near Dungiven. An elderly library patron in Dungiven, who overheard Elder and Sister Speer making inquiries, directed them to the old Bovevagh Presbyterian cemetery. Thus, they were able to find the ancestral home, still in use, and the graves of important ancestors.
The documents on file in Limavady and a legal will left by Elder Speer's great-grandfather, James Smyth Douglas, revealed a startling fact: Rosebrook was a 300-year-old, 1,000-acre Douglas family estate.
Important events in the lives of the Douglas family were found in searching the old records in the Bovevagh church. A stained glass window and the organ of the church have inscriptions indicating they were donated by the Douglases.
The Rosebrook homeland was sold in the early 1920s by William Douglas, a brother to Elder Speer's grandmother, Georgiana Osborn Douglas. Georgiana immigrated to California in 1922 with her husband, John Edward Phair, and four children, one of whom is Elder Speer's mother.
