My Greene County Indiana Ancestors & More...
The Norris Family of Maryland & Virginia - Genealogy of Thomas Norris 1361-1930
This is from various sources and mainly from a non published 4 volume transcript that is in
the library of Congress, and I obtained a miscrofilm copy of and transcribed into Personal
Ancestral file back in 2000.
The main sources are:
The latter two seeming to be individual line spin-offs of the Davis Manuscript.
One says there is only copy of this book is located in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and on microfilm in the Latter Day Saints Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Yet another told - "Only three copies were produced, and one is located in the Rare Books Section of the Library of Congress. Another is to be in the Kansas DAR Library at Dodge city, Kansas"
Needless to say " The Norris Family" is an amazing work in Genealogy, 1500 pages in four volumes.
The following is extracted from the manuscript by Major Harry Alexander Davis, US Army, Retired, entitled:
Genealogy of
Thomas Norris
1361-1930
(Transcript 4 vol. Washington, D.C.) Henry Alexander Davis
Preface
In 1930 this manuscript was completed and letters sent to some 3000 living members asking for subscriptions to help defray the cost of printing, etc. The responses were not sufficient to warrant publication of the work.Several efforts were made in 1934-1935 to secure a few individuals financially able to underwrite the cost, these too were unsuccessful.
It then became our plan to place a copy of this manuscript in the Library of Congress but as it was prepared for the printer it was found almost impossible to make an thomas_norris/index.
The original of this copy was written in 1940-1941 in form so that thomas_norris/index could be made. This copy has been made under very adverse circumstances owing to war conditions and has been made by several typists, none of which had previous experience with this class of work, and also a variation of typewriters. By placing this record with the Library of Congress we feel that our labor has not been in vain as it will be available to those who would be interested in its contents.
Washington, D. C. - Harry A. Davis 1943
Introduction
This work represents the results of a great many years of research. The pleasure of historical research and the wish to preserve historical facts have been the moving causes for the production of this book. In examining various records everything of the name was abstracted regardless of whether a direct bearing was apparent or not and all related families were carefully examined for indirect evidence.We have accepted no traditional records at face value and where any such are used herein it is clearly so stated and their use is for the sole purpose of aiding any one who may be interested at some future time.
We have traced down the various families of Norris found in the early records of the colonies of Virginia and Maryland to the date where they could be eliminated.
Unfortunately there does not exist any record showing exact date of arrival of Thomas Norris, the progenitor of this tribe, however, his associations show him in Virginia about 1630-1631 and he was in what later became Maryland prior to 1634. The first record in Maryland is 1637 when Thomas transports his wife, Ann; he is next mentioned in court records 1639-40, etc. The next mention of Norris in Maryland is when Thomas Norris and his brother-in-law were "transported" to Talbot County from St. Mary's County in 1662-63 disposing of their rights to John Morgan who recorded his papers in 1665.
This web site produced 18 Mar 2006 by Personal Ancestral File,
a product of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
NOTE: Personal Ancestral File (PAF) was a genealogy management software product formerly provided free of charge by FamilySearch. Like other genealogy management software, PAF allowed users to enter names, dates, places, source citations and other information into a database, and to print family group records, pedigree charts, descendancy charts, and other reports. PAF also allowed users to share their genealogical files with other researchers using GEDCOM formatted files and to link image and media files to individual records in their database.
On July 15, 2013, PAF was retired and is no longer available for download or support. Current PAF users may continue to use the software on their personal computers or they may prefer to switch to another product
provided for your convenience and do not imply any endorsement of
the web sites or their contents."
