janfurness:
Harvey in BrightlingseaI've looked through the Brightlingsea All Saints baptisms from 1769 to 1812 and written down every Harvey that appears:
7th May 1769 Jonathan of Nathaniel & Mary Harvey
19th April 1778 William son of William Harvey
7th March 1802 William son of William & Martha Harvey (one assumes the father here is about 24 and was the William baptised in 1778)
22nd September 1811 Mary daughter of James & Elizabeth Harvey <--- your family
I cannot see a baptism there for James, but with there being only that one baptism for a child of William Harvey, it's possible that James is his son and was baptised in another parish.
There are a lot of Harveys on the Webrarian site:
http://www.webrarian.co.uk/ But I can't see your James. However, it does include a James Harvey born about 1692 and his son, also James, born about 1712, and both were from Brightlingsea. So again, we have the name associated with Brightlingsea. I really think that you'll find James in one of the other parishes in the Tendring area, but the question is, of course, which one?! The only way to find it will be to go through each parish register one by one. You can leave out the ones which appear on FreeREG and Family Search (if you look at
Dusty Docs, you can see the coverage of free transcriptions). The registers on Essex Ancestors (on
Seax) aren't indexed, so you have to find the one which covers the years you need and then go through each image - it can be difficult if you're not used to it, not only because of the handwriting but also because of the rather eccentric approach some vicars took to the arrangement of their registers! You would probably need more than a day to do it, and this comes with a health warning - parish registers are VERY addictive!
The transcription CD I have for Brightlingsea covers 1813-1851, and James isn't on there - his marriage was in 1810 so comes 3 years before it starts, and his rough date of birth (I suppose we might assume it was sometime around his wife's) falls well before it too (hence me going through the scans of the original register just now on Essex Ancestors). And it covers the period when we assume he died, but there's no burial for him. The only Harvey burials in Brightlingsea on the CD are for three of James & Elizabeth's children (Elizabeth Ann in 1815, James jnr in 1820 and Jane Caroline in 1825 (I think she's the one baptised as Jemima Caroline in 1823). The CD includes the marriages of Betsy Ann Harvey (born about 1817, married Wm Marrington Goff in 1842), and there's one for Mary Harvey, who married Robert Wade in 1836 - this could be the Mary, daughter of James & Elizabeth, baptised in 1811. The only other Harvey marriage in Brightlingsea is William Harvey and Rebecca Ward.
Note that on the CD there are transcriptions for Thorrington and Frating too - there are some Harveys there too, and I think one of the was called James, so be careful you don't pick the wrong James!
Hills in ColchesterI've checked the transciption CDs covering 1783-1812 and can't see a baptism for Elizabeth Hills in Colchester (also checked the extra-mural parishes - nothing there either). There's a Francis Hill, son of John & Catherine, born in 1789 and baptised at St Mary's at the Walls, which could be her brother if she was baptised outside Colchester. There is an Elizabeth Halls, daughter of James & Rachel, born in 1788 and baptised at St. Nicholas' (but there are a lot of children of James & Rachel Halls, so I suppose it's unlikely that it's a mistake between Hills and Halls, but I mention it as a possibility). (and just so you know - no James Harvey baptisms in Colchester either).
I have also checked the non-conformist records and can't see her there either.
There are, however, several people called Hills in "Colchester People" (the John Bensusan-Butt archive). I will need to have a read through and see if it mentions Elizabeth. They seem to be mainly prosperous baymakers.
