Abshier Name

Lewis Abshire/Abshere/Abshaw (Spouse Unknown)

Online searches quickly yield records of a Lewis Abshere who was part of a land grant to Thomas Moyses  in James City County VA in 1637 (can be found in several books that record Virginia land grants in the 1600's) and a Lewis Abshire who immigrated from England to James  City County in 1637, which can be found on page 11 the unabridged version of "Immigrants to American before 1750" by Frederick Virkus.

What I found next though, required some digging.  While in the Houston Public Library I saw some books titled "Essex Parish Registers" (remember, Lewis was from Stifford, Essex) but they were old and fragile and were therefore bound and a note said that a digitized version could be found at BYU.  But, they only had four volumes.  It turns out there are about a hundred of them.

Then I found a web site hosted by the Essex County, England, government that is digitizing all the Parish registers.  But, transcriptions for only a few are available.  Fortunately for me, the original handwritten one for Stifford was legible.

The Chairman of the group sponsoring the digitization of the Essex Parish Registers helped me find Lewis's birth recorded on November 2, 1617.  Note that the scribe spelt the surname as Abshaw.

Image of Land Record for Lewis Abshere

Birth record of Lewis Abshaw from Stifford Parish Register