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Alan March’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back many generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Alan’s as (1)
JOHN HARRIS and MARGARET FREEBORNE (11)
JOHN HARRIS. In 1812 the farm labourer Joseph Clift married Jane Harris in the Essex town of Chelmsford. We have traced the Harris family back, mostly in the village of Writtle, a mile west of Chelmsfore, but ultimately to Chelmsford itself.
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex.Today it is a cathedral city, though in the Harrises’ time it was just a market town. It lies some 20 miles NE of London. The rivers Can and Chelm run separately through it.
John Harris is a common name and we do not yet have access to the full parish registers, but we believe the earliest known Harris ancestor it is the John Harris and his wife Margaret had a son John baptised in 1687. This would lead us to expect a birth date for John around 1660, the year when King Charles II was crowned in the newly-restored monarchy after the Civil War.
There are several baptisms around that time in the Chelmsford area, and there may be others in parishes whose early registers have not survived.
In one record his son John is said to be a “maker of malt” and in another, a labourer. Either of these may have been John senior’s occupation, or it could have been something else.
MARGARET FREE BORNE. We do not have the marriage of John and Margaret, but a summary of the will of A Freeborne of Chelmsford in 1692 shows legacies to his/her daughter Margaret Harris, son-in-law John Harris and grandson John Harris. This matches exactly what we know about this family, including the fact that we have only found one child.
We do not know the baptismal name represented by “A”, or even whether the testator was male or female, though the former is more like, and was probably Alexander.
We have not been able to match the date of will exactly with a burial, but there are burials for Alexander Freeborne in Chelmsford within a few years of 1692.
In 1661, Alexander Freeborne, mercer of nearby Witham, was appointed Master of the House of Correction in Chelmsford. We have no certainty that this is Margaret’s father, but it remains a possibility. Houses of Correction were punitive establishments for petty criminals, vagrants and the poor.
We have found only one baptism for this couple.
Baptism. St Mary the Virgin, Chelmsford.
1686/7 Jan 28 John son of John and Margaret Harris.
We have found no plausible burial for Margaret.
The most likely burial for John is the following.
Burial. St Mary the Virgin, Chelmsford.
1725 Dec 7 John Harris.
But this is a common name, so we cannot be certain.
Their lives take us beyond the Stuart period, into the Georgian age.
NEXT GENERATION: 9. HARRIS-ADAMS
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