John Harrison clock maker 1693-1776

[Happyhaddock]

I primarily joined this forum to try find out a bit more about my grandfather's military service, but I'm going to pitch this "long shot" enquiry up into the air just to see if anybody takes a swing at it.

My mother is descended from a long line of artisan craft workers living along the south bank of the river Humber in what is now NE Lincolnshire. She has quite the interest in genealogy  which is starting to rub off on me. She says she has traced our family tree  in Lincolnshire back to the late 18th century having found bakers, shoe makers and many other craftsmen. By training I am a theoretical physicist but now work as an artist/sculptor, my mother trained as a mathematician but now spends more time with needle crafts,  whilst my deceased grandfather trained as a wireless engineer but ended up making jewellery.

Clearly making stuff runs in the family.

Anyway to get to my point; if we go back a few generations into the early 19th and late 18th century the surname Harrison crops up a lot in our family tree, along with forenames John, William and Elizabeth, as do connections to the general vicinity of Barrow upon Humber; My parents still live less than 10miles from there.

Arguably the most famous name in horology (clock making) is John Harrison 1693-1776 who whilst ending up working in London started his career as a carpenter and for some while lived in Barrow upon Humber.

Wanting somebody to be an ancestor is not the same as proving they are but the chance of a family connection seems too strong to ignore. 18th century Barrow upon Humber cannot have been such a large place as to have numerous unrelated families going by the name of Harrison? However we cannot trace our own family tree back far enough to make a link, nor can we trace the famous John Harrison's family tree forward in anyway which makes a definite connection into our own.

If there are folks here with a strong  interest in the famous clock maker John Harrison or who know they are descended from him I'd love to make contact.

Cheers

[chris_49]

Hello and welcome.

I'm relieved that you realise that there's no proof that you're related to the famous John Harrison, inventor of the marine chronometer as featured in the fascinating series "Longitude" - worth trying to find if you (or anybody) has not seen it. Harrison is a very common name, especially in Northern England.

Doubtless you've looked at everything you can find via Wikipedia and Google, but there's not much detail on his family, and these folk lived before reliable records were kept. But have you looked at the detail on geni.com? I wish I could report that this is a reliable site, but it isn't - only as good as its informants.

Wikipedia seems certain that he married Elizabeth Barrel (rare surname) then after she died Elizabeth Scott (not). The geni pages, managed by one person, find that he had one son John by Barrel, but he died at 18, then son William and Elizabeth by his second marriage, but that these people and their descendants lived in London. It might be worth contacting the profuile manager (you have to sign up) to find out more.

John Harrison was actually born at Foulby near Wakefield but that doesn't mean his family had no prior connection with the South Humber area - it's not clear why they moved there.

Chris

[Happyhaddock]

I'm increasingly finding a huge number of Harrison's in my mothers research  which date around the mid 1800's but nothing prior to 1780's

[Happyhaddock]

Something weird is going on here  which is replacing posts with copies of earlier posts... does this forum suffer from known technical bugs?

[Happyhaddock]

I'm going to try and re-post comments I made earlier which seem to have disappeared;

Anyway within my mothers notes I have found an Elizabeth Scot dating back to the end of the 18th century (single "T" but old spellings aren't always that consistent).

What is more the same set of notes from this early period mention a family name of "Ballel" which could so easily be a corruption or simple misreading of "Barrel".

Quite how these tie into our own family tree isn't clear, but I think I need to sit down with my mother and ask her exactly where she has obtained this information and if she still has copies of the original documents/records it came from.  I can't formally connect us to THE John Harrison yet, but a gut feeling tells me that it's because the information is muddled at this stage , not that we aren't related.

[stanmapstone]

John Harrison was actually born at Foulby near Wakefield but that doesn't mean his family had no prior connection with the South Humber area - it's not clear why they moved there.

Chris

He was born at Foulby in the parish of Wragby, Yorkshire, where he was baptized on 31 March 1693, the eldest of five children of Henry Harrison (1665–1728) and his wife, Elizabeth, née Barber. His father was a joiner and was said to have worked for Sir Rowland Winn (d. 1721) at Nostel Priory, Wragby. In 1696 or 1697 the family moved to Barrow upon Humber, Lincolnshire, where Winn owned other estates. Henry Harrison was appointed parish clerk soon after his arrival.
From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Stan

[majm]

Something weird is going on here  which is replacing posts with copies of earlier posts... does this forum suffer from known technical bugs?

No,  but if you are concerned,  just use the report to moderator  option,  and I am sure the volunteer mods will sort, or alert the founders.

JM.

[Rena]

I primarily joined this forum to try find out a bit more about my grandfather's military service, but I'm going to pitch this "long shot" enquiry up into the air just to see if anybody takes a swing at it.

My mother is descended from a long line of artisan craft workers living along the south bank of the river Humber in what is now NE Lincolnshire.

Anyway to get to my point; if we go back a few generations into the early 19th and late 18th century the surname Harrison crops up a lot in our family tree, along with forenames John, William and Elizabeth, as do connections to the general vicinity of Barrow upon Humber; My parents still live less than 10miles from there.

Arguably the most famous name in horology (clock making) is John Harrison 1693-1776 who whilst ending up working in London started his career as a carpenter and for some while lived in Barrow upon Humber.

Cheers

I accidentally came across your posting, I know nothing about your ancestry but stayed to read because I'm from the opposite bank of the Humber 

Have you referred to the GENUKI website at all?  This is my main "go to" website for general information about a place, which usually includes information about microfilm records of baptisms, marriages, deaths.
     
On the Barrow Upon Humber page:-         

 "The Anglican parish church register dates from 1561.
         
          The Lincolnshire FHS has published several marriage indexes and a burial index for the Yarborough Deanery to make your search easier."

 .......... there's also a piece of writing and here's part of it:-

"James HARRISON: Born in 1704 James was eleven years his brother's junior and controversy surrounded his role in the construction of the first two chronometers H1 and H2. However, it is likely that James worked on both H1 and H2. As carpenters the church records show that the Harrison's made coffins and also worked on the repair and construction of bell frames and church furniture. Amongst the earliest record of James' work is the sundial, which he made for Holy Trinity Church Barrow in 1732 and which bears his signature."

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LIN/Barrow

Best wishes,
Rena

[Happyhaddock]

Rena,

Thanks for the  link as I wasn't aware of this site

It seems, like so much to do with genealogy, that 19th/20th century records are plentiful but as you start pushing back into the 18th and 17th centuries things soon get "sketchy".

It may be the reason I can't find any clear link between THE John Harrison and my family is simply that there isn't one. However for the time being there's lots of superficial similarities and circumstantial  hints pointing towards this and not enough clear information to conclusively show there is no link;- All for the simple reason that we don't know enough about our own family tree in the early-mid 18th century.

Cheers