Issues with _____ Harris, born 1 Jan 1881

James A.G.Harris Jr.

The registry of birth information for _____ Harris, born 1 Jan 1881 in Gloucester, VA states the sex at birth is female, not male; the father's name is Jas Harris and mother's full name is Mary E. Harris (not her maiden name). Is this information correct?

MandyShaw1

Why do you think the person should be male, given you can't read the given name or it is absent (not clear which applies)? It's a relatively common surname (so entirely possible it's the mother's maiden name too). If you are looking for a specific relative this could well be someone else altogether - suggest your next step might be to check censuses to see how many Harris families there were round there at that time.

Also 1 Jan is suspicious to me, some records I am aware of (even 21st century ones) put 1 Jan as a regrettable shorthand for 'no idea'.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

@James A.G.Harris Jr.

You need to include where you see this information so we can help. Is this a record index, an individual profile in the tree, or something else entirely?

And, if it is a profile in the FSFT, your best option is to contact the person who entered the information by clicking on the contributor username.

James A.G.Harris Jr.

The certificate of death has the first name for this individual (James, middle initial G, and last name Harris), with his father's name (also James Harris) and mother's maiden name Mary Ensey. The certificate of death said he was born in Virginia and the only record I see with a "Harris" being born on Jan 1, 1881 was to a Jas Harris and Mary E. The information found was from this location:

"Virginia, Vital Records, 1715-1901", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6J6B-Q7H5 : Sat Mar 09 09:15:18 UTC 2024), Entry for Harris and Jas Harris, 1 Jan 1881

Also do you want me to upload the copy of the certificate of death for James G. Harris (born in VA on January 1, 1881)?

Re Searching

Looks like this guy: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G4RS-KBD

Adrian Bruce1

The basic strategy of starting with what you know and looking back for candidates is sensible. However, it needs two things to be true:

• "All" births in that area need to be recorded in the first place;
• "All" recorded births need to be accessible somewhere;

If I look at the FS Wiki for Virginia's Vital Records ( URL https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Virginia_Vital_Records ) it says that the "Earliest Births" recorded are 1853-1896, Statewide Registration starts in 1912, and General Compliance is "late 1917".

I don't know how many of those birth records are online.

Now, as a Brit with minimal experience of Virginia's vital records, I can only take those details at face value but it suggests strongly that your James G Harris may not have had his birth recorded. Certainly, the issues with the record that you have found (no given name and a mismatched sex) make me think that it is highly unlikely that the record in question is your chap.

I would suggest that the question is not "is this information correct?" - you are, after all, probably the expert on your guy's ancestry. Rather it's "What are the sources that I should be looking in, and are they complete?"

I'd take a guess that the sensible thing is to join the Southern States Research Group on https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/174-southern-states-research and ask the questions there.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

To add to Adrian's excellent summary, the birth record and the profile are for a person of color. Early vital registrations for people of color are less common. The keeping of vital records in most Southern US states was spotty, at best, until about 1920.

The record could be for your person of interest, but we don't have sufficient information to determine that.