Sgt. John Harris - @Sgt. John Harris

Sgt John Harris did not have a son Thomas Harris d1672 who married Alice West. That is a total misconception by John Bennett Boddie in his 'Historical Southern Families' He took the ancient Harris family legend of a Thomas Harris and wife Alice West as the progenitors of a long line of Harris in Isle of Wight and incorrectly combined that legend with the known facts of a Thomas Harris dying in IOW in 1672 with a wife Alice, into one and the same family. This Thomas Harris d1672 emigrated with his parents Edward and Frances Harris and their children c1650 to Lancaster Co., VA where Thomas Harris married 1st to Eleanor George and had one son John Harris d1713. After Eleanor died before her father Nicholas George died there in 1661, Thomas married 2nd to Alice NEWMAN, dau of John Newman Sr and Robyn Atterton, and had several daughters and ONE son Thomas Harris d1712 who married Judith Edwards. Boddie was well aware of the Thomas Harris d1677 intestate in Charles City but ignored him because he could find no evidence to connect him to those in Isle of Wight. To this day, there is no single extant Charles City record found that connects this Thomas Harris d1677 to any Harris in Isle of Wight. The probate of his estate in Mar 1677 only says there were unnamed minor children. The only Virginia record of Alice West Harris is her transport from London in 1635 at age 21. This Thomas Harris d1677 is now considered as the son of Sgt John Harris and the husband of Alice West, but there are no records that name their children or when or where she died as his widow at the time of his death was an Yvett who gave up guardianship to his minor children and died in 1678.