Four HARRIS families were among the New England "planters" arriving in Nova Scotia in the late 1700s. Other Harrises came in the 1800s. There have been quite a few questions about the surname on the Maritime Canada internet mailing lists, and I have some questions of my own. This shared interest prompted me to put together preliminary reports on these groups, compiled from information that I had on hand from my own researches. Perhaps they will help answer some of your questions, or will generate some more information with which I can add to or correct the following pages.
Be warned that almost none of what follows results from more than superficial research on my part. This is a surname that just keeps getting in my way as I research other families in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Everything I've used has some "respectability" to it - I haven't put in anything that I found solely in Ancestral File, IGI, Family Tree Maker gedcoms, or similar sources of uneven reliability - but be sure you don't take any of it as gospel until you check it out for yourselves. Think of it as a study aid, offered just so everybody doesn't have to keep plowing the same old basic ground.
I have individual records of other Harrises that I couldn't positively place within any of these family groups. If you are looking for somebody who doesn't show up on my lists, check the Harris Annotated Bibliography. Also, please contact me if you can add to, clarify, or correct anything in any of the families.