Meek / Harris Family 1700's - Forest of Dean FHT Forum

Hi All

Very very sorry to hear about David

This is a question relating to a long 2009 post about the Meek Family, in particular Ann Harris, who married Joseph Harris in Ruardean, December 1779.

http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=17371

Marion proposed that Ann's parents were Ann (e) Meek (1715 - 1789), who married George Harris (1715 - 1784). According to the baptism records on the FOD site for Ann Meek b 1753 her parents were William Haris and Mary

I can't find any other baptism records for Ann Harris that confirm the above - has anyone done any further research on this line of the Harris Family?

Thanks in advance

Karl

Record_ID: 54192
Entry_Number:
Year: 1753
Month: Dec
Day: 16
Parents_Surname: HARIS
Child_Forenames: Ann
Fathers_Forenames: William
Mothers_Forenames: Mary
Mothers_Surname:
Residence: Town of Dosetter
Occupation:
Officiating_Minister: Edward KIDLEY
Event: Baptism
Memoranda:
Notes: Dual page numbers in PR. Entry is duplicated on pages 41 and 50.
Register_Reference: P275 IN 1/2
Page_Number: 4049
Parish_Chapel: Ruardean
Soundex: H620

Post reply

2424 views

Hi Karl,
if only to perhaps confirm your research, I have just thoroughly searched this site's PRs from all angles & spelling variations I can think of.
I can only find ONE other possible Baptism for a Ann Harris within the timeframe, which happens to be in Ruardean (I was searching ALL Parishes):

Record ID 54252
Entry Number
Year 1755
Month Nov
Day 12
Parents Surname HARRIS
Child Forenames Ann
Fathers Forenames John
Mothers Forenames Ester
Mothers Surname
Residence
Occupation
Officiating Minister Richard REECE
Event Baptism
Memoranda
Notes Not in BT
Register Reference P275 IN 1/2
Page Number 44
Parish Chapel Ruardean

Sadly I cannot find any likely Marriage at all within the PRs for these parents.

So clearly not the reply you were hoping for but perhaps a small crumb of reassurance wrt your own research.

PLEASE can you shed some light on the intriguing entry within your quoted Baptism,
"Residence: Town of Dosetter"

I ask as geography is a passion of mine, plus I have many family connections with Ruardean Church, but Dosetter is a wholly new one to me. Perhaps its a transcription error from Gloster (v.unlikely I think), or is it Dorchester, or Dorset or what ??
I suspect it does refer to a place outside of the Forest given the lack of a parent's marriage within the PRs, yet where please ?.

Cheers Jeff.

Post reply

2273 views

Hi Jeff

Thanks for taking the time to look at this for me - I originally had the 1755 Ann Harris in my tree, but was unable to find her parents’ marriage. I then found the post by Marion which seemed a more logical solution, assuming of course that her parents were Ann Meek and George Harris. However, there seems to be no other source to validate this.

I agree with you that 'Dosseter' must be a transcription error - the entries above are taken from the transcribed parish records on this site. I have no idea where this is - my first thought was Gloucester too, but I cannot find anything in the records to confirm this.

Best Regards

Karl

Post reply

2175 views

Karl

I have the wife of Joseph Meek 1749 as Ann Harris daughter of George Harris & Anne Meek. I had the wrong baptism data, using the Dec 1753 baptism, which I now see is clearly wrong. Unfortunately I have never recorded source of information, and with a tree of over 24000 people it is a little late to start.

I did record in a spreadsheet all the parish record detail that I found myself in the days before internet searches were possible, and this baptism is not amongst that detail. Whilst I have 174 Harris's in my tree, I have no real connection to the family other than marriages to others. I have however made contact with quite a few Meek's and this is perhaps a source of the incorrect baptism.

I have however got all the Ruardean BT's. I have checked those and the baptism of Ann Harris Dec 1753 was indeed to a William & Mary.

It remains a fact that Joseph Meek 1749 did marry an Ann Harris.

I have a sister for Ann Harris - Betty Harris who married John Dubberley 1755 at Ruardean 19 Oct 1778. I cannot find a baptism for her, but then I am not related to either Ann or Betty Harris, but children of both lead to those that are related to me, for instance Betty Harris & John Dubberley had 8 children - also not related to me, but 2 grandsons married Marfell sisters who are my Great Great Great Aunts.

I would try the advanced search for children of George & Anne Harris to find a baptism for Betty Harris, if only I knew how !!

Jim Ashton

Post reply

2175 views

Hi Jim,
Apologies if I'm wrong as I haven't read the full background history, but I think I may have found your "lost" Baptism, as per your suggestion using the Advanced Search:

Record ID 54208
Entry Number
Year 1754
Month May
Day 10
Parents Surname HARIS
Child Forenames Elizabeth
Fathers Forenames George
Mothers Forenames Ann
Mothers Surname
Residence
Occupation
Officiating Minister Edward KIDLEY
Event Baptism
Memoranda
Notes Page in PR has dual numbering: 52 and 43. May 11 in BT
Register Reference P275 IN 1/2
Page Number 43
Parish Chapel Ruardean

Wotyereckon ?

Regarding your comment wrt using Advanced Search, which I'm sure you're fibbing about, in this instance I searched "Baptisms" using the following inputs: Surname "Har", Parent's names "Geo" and "Ann".
Hence it will cleverly find spelling variations such as Harris, Haris, Harries, Harrice, George, Ann, Anne, Anna, Hannah, Susannah, etc etc. Yes in this instance amongst the 130 hits it also finds Hardwick etc etc but as the results are displayed in a table they are easy to quickly browse thro. When the results are displayed, first ensure the table is as fully-displayed as possible by selecting a suitable "records per page" number from the dropdown menu, in this case 100, the highest. Now the results can be sorted as you prefer by clicking on the top heading of the relevant column; I prefer chronolical order so clicked "Year". When you find the required PR just click the lefthand "page" icon to display the full PR.
When using this Search as with so many search engines I find and strongly recommend "less is more"; eg don't be tempted to enter the mothers maiden surname, many if not most PRs dont include it so the displayed results won't be optimal, in fact in this example there will be none at all. Worrying about spelling variations as I do, or dare I say possible errors re Betty's mother, personally I would have probably not even input the mother's forename either. Sure, this then gives 600+ results, but again when tabulated chronologically they only take seconds to browse down to your target dates.
If you genuinely do have troubles driving the Advanced Search, please don't think you're alone !. For some months after joining this great site I used to methodically but still laboriously flog thro all the results from the normal PR search, trying to guess spelling variations & errors, until the kindly MPG mentioned the previously unseen Advanced Search method (and I thought I'd studied all the site's features and read the help pages !). Lots of subsequent trial and error has shown me this is a great feature, very much a case of practice makes perfect(ish). Altho like the Soundex it's not completely infallible I still think it is truely wondrous, especially with it's ability to find names from just a few letters and without even using the wildcard character.

I do hope this helps you in future, and that this Baptism is your "missing" link.
atb Jeff.

Post reply

2137 views