Origins of surname
This is a common English surname recorded in many spellings, including Harry, Harrie, Harrhy, Harris, Harries, and Harriss. All derive from the personal name Harry, itself a nickname form of Henry. Henry, which originates from the Frankish name "Henn-ric", meaning "home-rule", was first introduced into Britain at the Norman Conquest of England, in 1066, and is recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086.
Early records
Harris first appears in Jersey baptism records in 1710 and 1713 with the children of Edouard and Marie Kitchin, and then in 1717 and 1720 with the children of Charles, a newcomer from England, and Elizabeth Le Feuvre. However, these early lines appear to have died out and the next baptism on record is in St Brelade in 1796, when Harriet, daughter of John and Sara, was baptised.
A number of Harris men appear to have come to the island with their families, or married in Jersey and started families with local girls, during the peak immigration years of the first half of the 19th century. We have been able to identify five separate family trees from this period.
Family records
Family trees
- Descendants of William Harris
- Descendants of Charles Harris
- Descendants of John George Harris
- Descendants of William Harris and Ann Flux
Church records
- Harris baptisms in Jersey
- Harris marriages in Jersey (groom)
- Harris marriages in Jersey (bride)
- Harris burials in Jersey
Great War service
Family wills
These wills created by members of the Harris family are now held by Jersey Archive. By visiting the archive site and using the names, dates and reference numbers shown here, it is possible to view a copy of each will. You will have to subscribe to the Archive's online service to do this. To find out more about this collection, which covers the period from 1663 to 1980, and how to search for your family's wills there, visit our Jersey wills page
- Abner Harris, Franche Villa, Grouville - 19 January 1932, D/Y/A/92
- Andrew Harris - 22 November 1944, D/Y/A/113
- Francis Harris, 21 Don Street, St Helier, retired Lieutenant, Indian Army - 25 January 1933, D/Y/A/94
- Francis Joseph Harris, 24½ Great Union Road, St Helier - 15 January 1939, D/Y/B1/25/7
- George Harris, Oakhurst, Grouville, bequeaths to Winifred Maude Godfray Clayfield, St Peter - 30 September 1927, D/Y/A/87
- Henry Harris of Woodbrook Cottage, Town Mills, St Saviour - 30 May 1948, D/Y/A/119
- Jospeh Harris of 3, Museum Street - 28 January 1874, D/Y/A/37
- Laura Harris née Gallichan, Sussex Lodge, St Martin - 15 August 1947, D/Y/A/118
- Nicholas Harris, Glenlee, St Marks Road, St Helier - 22 October 1935, D/Y/A/98
- Philippe Harris, Havre des Pas, St Helier desires to be buried in St Clement's cemetery - 21 April 1909, D/Y/A/68
- Rowena Harris, St Helier, widow of George Clements desires to be buried in Almorah Cemetery - 6 April 1916, D/Y/A/75
- Thomas Harris of St Helier, Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer , bequeaths to Mrs Howell all his furniture in Clarendon House, 12 Clarendon Road, St Helier, currently occupied by Colonel Draper - 16 December 1864, D/Y/A/32
Burial records
Family album
Family businesses
Family gravestones
Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs
The grave of Great War casualty Wilfred Ernest Harris at Heninel Communal Cemetery, near Arras
Tips
The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.
We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling
The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.
New records
Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form
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