Of course, Ira, you know there is a genforum for Edgecombe Co. NC  However,--dismay--it has not been updated since 2009.  Does your local library have the online database called HeritageQuest?.  There are lots of county histories (out of copyright) which have been digitized.  There is a county history of Edgecombe Co. on HQ  I don't know how useful it is.  Also, an e-mail friend of mine (and a distant relative of colonial Granville Co.,NC and afterwards of Henderson C., KY) Deloris Williams has her name on the genforum for Edgecombe Co.  She lives in Illinois, but she is an enthusiastic genealogist and may be able to give you some guidance on your Edgecombe Co. Harrises.  Also, surprisingly, some common folk appear in the 26 [is that right?] volumes of the Colonial and State Papers of North Carolina.  The volumes have been digitized by the Univ. of North Carolina, and I have been surprised by some of the material I have found there (in some of the old hard copies which I stumbled on in my [not then remodeled] local LDS family history center.  According to Helen M. Leary (Mrs North Carolina genealogy as far as I am concerned) most North Carolinians came from Virginia.  Even those in western NC may have come the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia--including the Boones and the Morgans and the Linvilles and even later some of my Moravian folk.  Access to North Carolina from the Atlantic was hampered by the barrier islands off the coast of NC.  I think I read that is called the Graveyard of Ships.  I know that the vacation homes on those islands get blown away every now and then by hurricanes.  Be sure to use google.books to prowl.  I am amazed how many of some of the Genealogical  Publ. Co. books appear, but according to Dick Eastman's recent newsletter [free except the Plus edition] that may change. Evelyn