Speak(e)(s)(es) Family Association

The Speak/e/s/es Family Association (SFA) was organized in Clayton, Missouri, near St. Louis, on Saturday, August 25th, 1979 under the name Speak/e/s/es Historical Society, for the purpose of exchanging information with others researching Speak/e/s/es genealogy.

We welcome new members in our organization.  Annual membership dues are as follows:

Regular – $25

Sponsor – $25 – $99

Patron – $100 or more

To join, send a check made out to Speakes Family  and send it to the treasurer.  You can find the current treasurer on the Officers page at this link.

Our membership year runs from July 1 through June 30th.  Please send your dues to the treasurer listed on the Officer’s page.  A membership in the SFA is an excellent gift for any member of your family.

Membership includes the following benefits:

*Quarterly Bulletin (via US mail)

*Access to the information in the Speak/e/s/es family research archives.

*Annual Conference

*Private online family newsgroup

A Little History

One of the early bonds cementing the representatives of the various lines was a search for the files of one A. Howard Speake, who traveled through the United States and England from 1925 to 1938 contacting Speak/e/s wherever he found them and haunting courthouses to collect records on anyone connectd with the family.  From the return addresses on his voluminous correspondence, it was known that A. Howard Speake lived in Florida, in Washington, DC, in New York and in New Jersey, but members were unable to find any descendants of his one son nor of his one grandchild nor where he died or what became of the trunk of files to which he referred frequently in his letters.

At last, in December 1984, a member in Florida, (descended from Sally Spake of North Carolina, b Dec. 25 1792), found the probate records for A. Howard Speake in Pinellas County, Florida, where he died on Feb. 19, 1944.  It has been incorrectly assumed that AHS had died in Washington, DC circa 1939.  His wife, Allie, who was as interested in Speak/e/s as he was also died in Pinellas County on Feb. 14, 1952.  From her obituary, it was learned that their only grandchild, Dorothy Lorraine Speake had married Lester G. Delafield.  Another member, in the DC area, (descended from George W. Speakes, c 1780-1840 and who lived in Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi), in March 1985 discovered a listing for Lester G. Delafield in a telephone directory and learned from Dorothy that the trunk of records was almost certainly the one piece of the Speake effects lost when they were shipped from Florida to New York after Allie’s death.