Garda Hodgson's Paper

Some years ago, our distant cousin, Garda M. Hodgson, wrote a paper that she titled Harris & Related Families that traces the lineage and origins of Isaac Harris, and many of his children.

Mrs. Hodgson's research provides excellent documentation for anyone working on these family lines, with census record extractions shown in the body of this paper.

In May, 2006, her expansion on this paper was published as an online genealogical book, Descendants of Isaac Harris. This book would be about a thousand pages of text, if printed out. The title page has a form to order the book on CD-ROM for a very reasonable cost.

Can this be our family line?

Another research paper on Harris and other family lines turned up in 1977 at the Virginia State Library in Richmond, where Doug Paulson found a document which purported to spell out Harris Family origins in the US. Initially, the document seemed of interest only because of that allegation, though none of the names listed seemed to match with any of his known ancestors.

However, when taken with Garda Hodgson's research, this paper gains greater potential as a further breakthrough in research on this branch of the Ancestral Harris family. At this time, we still have no clear connection between the families cited in this paper and our Isaac Harris. Both this research paper and the one listed above trace to Brunswick Co., VA in the mid-1700s, and both include an Isaac Harris. Could they be cousins, or uncle and nephew? We must leave it to future research to answer that question. If we can develop a link to the families identified in this document, we will have solved the question of where our Harris family originated.

Thanks to George A. Harris:

The document authored by Garda Hodgson was sent to the Webmaster by George A. Harris, a descendant of Isaac Harris's youngest son, Zachariah Harris, namesake of the father of William Jasper Harris. (Zachariah was brother of Benjamin Harris, William Jasper's ancestor.) He also provided family group sheets with detailed information on the families of Isaac Harris and his children. All branches of the Harris family are indebted to him for his graciousness in sharing the information he has collected from a variety of sources. And we must thank the several genealogists who have diligently located all this information, formerly unknown to descendants on some of the family lines.

Family Group Sheet for Isaac's Family

We have included an ASCII Text file of a Family Group Sheet for the family of Isaac Harris that came to us through George A. Harris. [NOTE: See entry below for Reuben Harris for NEW INFORMATON (July 6, 2001) about the identity of Isaac's spouse!]

Family Group Sheet for Isaac's son, Wooten's Family

We have included an ASCII Text file of a Family Group Sheet for the family of Wooten Harris, the third child of Isaac Harris, that came to us through George A. Harris.

Family Group Sheet for Isaac's son, Reuben's Family

We have included an ASCII Text file of a Family Group Sheet for the family of Reuben Harris, the seventh child of Isaac Harris, that the webmaster found on CD #12 of the Pedigree Resource File put out by the LDS Church. This particular file also gives a name to "Mrs. Harris," as all the other records refer to Isaac's spouse: Mary Polly Lynch! So we are posting that family group sheet here also. Thanks to Tonya Mauldin for posting this information in the PRF! Now, the trick will be to determine whether there is solid primary evidence supporting this item.

Some of our seasoned family genealogists believe this particular citation may be an error that occured in the document on which Tonya relied to copy it to her collection of records.

And, it's of particular interest that this name (Mary "Polly" Lynch) is the same as the person listed as Reuben Harris's spouse on the Family Group Sheet we have for him, linked above! Either one is right, the other wrong, or could both of them be in error? Garda Hodgson's research shows that Reuben married his second spouse, Mary (Lynch) Duncan, widow of Thomas Duncan, on January 11, 1838 in McDonough County, Illinois. Though the names are at least similar, none of the dates in Garda's research on Reuben agree at all with any of the dates in either of the Family Group Sheets posted above.

The good thing about this issue is that it provides a potential object lesson for the rest of us regarding the effort required to establish the facts in our genealogical research. Once we have succeeded in tracking down the source relied on in the original citation of this factoid, we will be able to determine whether or not it is correct. Until that time, it is simply an issue to be resolved, along with many others.

Family Group Sheet for Isaac's son, Zacharaiah's Family

We have included an ASCII Text file of a Family Group Sheet for the family of Zachariah Harris , the eighth child of Isaac Harris, our common ancestor, that came to us through George A. Harris. [This is George's ancestor. We do not have a separate page for this family on this website.]

© 2001 Isaac Harris Descendants,
Doug Paulson, Webmaster,
All Rights Reserved.

What this copyright means is that you
can't copy this material for commercial gain.
Family members may copy items for personal use
and genealogical research. All manuscripts
reproduced on this site used by permission of
the respective authors, (e.g., copyright owners).