- Define the Problem
- Timeline
This brick wall centres on the family of John and Martha Harris of Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. While I know quite a bit about the Harris family one generation earlier, I know very little about John Harris senior and his wife Martha. Since much of their lives and their parentage is a total unknown, I’m stuck behind a brickwall.
Martha Harris died in 1819 and was buried in the graveyard of the Cathedral Church in Sheffield on 7 February 1819. From her burial record, we know Martha was the wife of John Harris, a Steel Burner, and that they lived on Broad Lane in Sheffield and that she was 40 years old at the time of her death. Math tells me Martha was probably born about 1779 but I don’t know where, nor do I know what her name was at birth or who her parents were.
I know even less about John Harris. My assumption is that he would have been about the same age as Martha, so perhaps born around 1780. I do not know when he died.
I do not know when, where, or even if John and Martha Harris were married.
This should be easy, right?
The Dates
The timeframe of John and Martha’s lives (about 1780 to about 1820) was prior to civil registration which started in 1837. It was prior to the first all-name census of 1841. Few newspapers exist for this time period. The family was most likely poor working class and the poor of this time did not leave behind many paper records unless they found themselves on the wrong side of the law.
The Places
SHEFFIELD
And if all that wasn’t bad enough, John and Martha Harris lived for at least some of their lives in the rapidly growing industrial city of Sheffield, a pretty big haystack!
During the late 1700s and the early 1800s, the industrial revolution was underway and many people moved from rural locations to the larger industrial cities looking for steady employment and a better life. Given the timeframe I’m looking at (about 1780 to about 1820), it is possible, even likely, that either John or Martha or both moved to Sheffield rather than having been born there.
In my next post in this series, I will create a timeline for the Harris family of Sheffield.
