I finally have a question. I am so excited to ask it I can't sleep.
In baptismal records throughout Norfolk, but especially among the Harrisons of Great Plumstead, Great Yarmouth, and Caister, I am seeking these two babies, Isaiah and John, the uncle of Isaiah.
1. Isaiah Harrison, said to have been born 1666.
The 1666 comes from an erroneous assumption that we can ignore.
I think the latest he could have been born was 1667. The earliest was late 1650s, all of the 1660s.
At the regular age, so about age 14?, he was apprenticed to a blacksmith and became a very skilled one. (That he was highly skilled may be an exaggeration by enthusiastic descendants.)
In about 1687 he went to America, specifically Oyster Bay, now Nassau County, Long Island, New York colony.
His eldest known son was--unfortunately for discovering his father--Isaiah Harrison [Jr.]. Other sons all born in New York were John, Gideon, Thomas, Jeremiah, and Samuel. Three of these are obviously straight from that day's church sermon: Isaiah, Gideon, and Jeremiah. The rest are names used a lot in the families f his relatives: John, Thomas, and Samuel. I am surprised not to see a James among them, also commonly used by his cousins.
Thus we are looking for an Isaiah born in Norfolk who was not buried in Norfolk. His descendants were in the colony of Virginia.
Descendants in the 1700s were all manner of Protestants, even marrying a Quaker. In the 1500s early 1600s in Norfolk they could have been Church of England, though almost no descendants were. (Out of 3,000 descendants, about four were C. of I. or Episcopalian.)
If you google Isaiah Harrison, please ignore any suggestion he was the son of the Reverend Thomas Harrison of Chester and York and Dublin. I have shown this to be wrong, lots of reasons wrong. Isaiah was no born in Chester either. He was instead from a Norfolk family.
2. John Harrison was uncle of Isaiah (b. 1660s). I am guessing at his first name, as there was a John Harrison in the next generation and a handful of them in the third generation. Name could have been James, I suppose.
John Harrison was a young adult in 1649-1650.
We are looking for a John Harrison born about 1630 (latest 1632, earliest 1620s) who was born in Norfolk.
"Under Cromwell"--so I am thinking 1649-1650--John Harrison went to Ireland. (I am told Cromwell sent troops to Ireland before 1649 to put down the 1640 or 1641 rebellion.) I shall add, "never to return to England." That is he would have been buried in Ireland, not Norfolk. His descendants were/are in Ireland. I don't know that he was a soldier.
DNA testing helps me show that Isaiah and John's sons were not brothers, but first or second cousins. I have ruled out scone cousins. So Isaiah and John were nephew and uncle.
No known apprenticeship here, though descendants 200 years later include carpenters.
The Irish Harrisons were tenant farmers with 10 to 40 acres. It may simply be Irish history, but out of 84 farms in the family, almost all were cattle or dairy farms, some with Herefords for meat or Holsteins for milk.
The Irish Harrisons were Presbyterian and conservative (rarely breaking off), though they could have become Presb. after England, say in 1685-1703 in Ballynahinch, County Down, Ireland. Eventually in the 1800s some were Methodist.
This family has distinctive hair. The Harrison males have hair that is black and wavy OR red and wavy. The Harrison men have a hairline that I can recognize, but find hard to describe here. I is a lowercase n, meaning high forehead. Not bald, with hair on (top, sort of), back and sides. The Harrisons have twins every so often.
THANK YOU!
