Reeves DNA Group 8 Part I

Reeves DNA Group 8 researchers Gerald, Carolyn, and Sharland have concluded that all participants in Reeves DNA Group 8 descend from Robert Ryves of Dorset b 1490. This conclusion is based on DNA test results and research findings.

In determining the pedigrees of our members, Group 8 researchers found we share as our common ancestor the father of George Rives b 1660, John Rives b 1667 and Timothy Rives b 1670 in Virginia. We now believe that their father was Timothy Rives b 1625, son of Timothy Rives b 1588, of the family documented by James Rives Childs in the well-known Rives genealogy book, Reliques of the Rives.

In Reliques of the Rives, J. Rives Childs originally, and we believe erroneously, speculated that their father was William Rives b 1636 Oxford, England, the alleged emigrant ancestor documented as #1, page 73 of 'Part II The Virginia Family of Rives'.

Childs changed his thinking about William's identity 28 years after Reliques was published. In 1957, he published "Amendments to Reliques of the Rives" in “The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.” In the opening paragraphs, he states "The basis for the birth of William to Timothy Ryves and his wife of Oxford (pp.74-75) was the slightest..." Childs then cites evidence in the Charles City County Order Book for 1687-1695 that points to Timothy Rives b 1625 Oxford, England as the emigrant ancestor:

"I suggest now the likelihood that this Timothy "Rieve" or Rives was the emigrant ancestor and that he was identical with 206, Timothy Ryves, born 1625, son of Timothy and Mary Ryves of Oxford (p.51), and that he was the father of George, Robert, John and Timothy Rives of Virginia."

Given the evidence, we accept Childs' conclusion that Timothy b 1625 was the emigrant ancestor and the father of George, John, Robert, and Timothy. Timothy Rives b 1625 was the son of Timothy b 1588, #204, page 49 of Reliques, a son of Richard #3, a son of John #2, a son of Robert Ryves #1.

Timothy's son Robert died without male issue. However, Group 8 participants are descendants of the other three sons of Timothy b 1625. Six of our nine members descend from the oldest son, George Rives #2, two members descend from son John Rives #4, and one member descends from son Timothy Rives #5, page 77. The lines of Group 8 can be found at these links to Carolyn's trees at ancestry.com and rootsweb.com:

Timothy Rives in Rootsweb tree

Timothy Rives in Ancestry tree

The Reeves DNA Project Test Results page is here.

More information will be provided in Part II of this post.

More mysterious Reeves

Thomas C. Reeves is listed on the Hart County, Kentucky tax lists as early as 1819 and appears the next year on the 1820 census. In that census, he and his wife are both 16-26 years old and have one female child under 10. Thomas' place of birth in each census is always listed as Virginia, but no information has ever been found to indicate a county of origin or a possible family connection.

His wife, Rachel, is listed in census as having been born in Tennessee and her death certificate of 26 Dec 1861 identifies her as Rachel W. Amos and her parents as Frank and Jane Amos.

Thomas and Rachel's children were Amanda (c1830) who married William J. Harper, George A. (c1832) who married Martha Amanda Dale, Elizabeth Frances (30 Mar 1833) married Jesse W. Laird, Tyria G. (c1836), Mary A. (c1837) who married William Perry and Sarah B. (c1839) who married Richard Warren Dale. The identities of the female child listed in the 1820 census or any others born prior to 1830 are unknown.

Thomas C. Reeves appears to have died before the 1880 census was taken and no death certificate has ever been located that might identify his parents.

By the time the 1870 census of Hart County, Kentucky was taken, another Reeves family had migrated into that county. Jesse Reeves with his wife Mary Anne Priddy Reeves and their children John Franklin, Sarah Elizabeth, Joseph "Joe", Mary Jane, Leander J. and Mahala Susan had left Tennessee and arrived in Hart County by 1870. Another daughter, Caldona, was born the next year in 1871 and died in 1975 along with her father, Jesse.

Jesse Reeves was born in North Carolina on 12 Aug 1812 and he died in Hart County, Kentucky on 13 Apr 1875 of scarlet fever. It's unknown whether Jesse had been married prior to his marriage to Mary Anne around 1855 but it may be likely. Jesse was listed in the 1850 census of Washington County, Tennessee living in the household of Brookins and Mary S. Campbell. His occupation is given as "distiller". Mary Anne Priddy Reeves was the daughter of Joseph and Susannah Priddy who are said to have come from Stokes County, North Carolina. Mary Anne was born the 8th of Feb 1836 in Claiborne, Tennessee and died in Hart County on 27 Dec 1921.

There is no indication that these two Reeves' families were related so presumably the arrival of both families in Hart County, Kentucky was happenstance. Sadly, there is no historical information indicating the Reeves' lineages to which they belong.

Any comments from our readers regarding these families and their origins are welcome.





(Photo by Edith Bastin and Gaye Hill for USGWArchives)

See inventory of Copelin Cemetery in Hart County, Kentucky where members of the Jesse & Mary Anne Priddy Reeves' family are buried at USGW Archives.

William Reeves of Madison County, Kentucky

The internet abounds with various inaccurate allegations regarding my Reeves ancestor, William Reeves of Madison County, Kentucky. His parents, his wife and even his residence have been misrepresented in multiple websites. This mass of misinformation has been the motivating factor in my desire to seek out all the available historical documents regarding his life and create an accurate depiction of who he was, where he lived prior to his migration to Kentucky and from which Reeves family he was descended.

The LDS Family Resource Centers offer a wonderful service for genealogical researchers by providing microfilmed copies of the original records from a particular county which can be ordered and “rented” for a small fee. I found it was possible to stay at home in Texas and search all the records of Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina counties to find the truth of William Reeves.

He has been alleged to have originated in Halifax County VA, Granville County NC and even Warren County NC – all of which are incorrect. The documents filed in Madison County, Kentucky settling his estate in 1821 name his daughters Sarah Geer and Mary Allen along with son John of Wake County, North Carolina. Two sons, Peter and Charles are recorded as being residents of Halifax County, Virginia at that time but Peter who lived until the 1850 census gives North Carolina as his birthplace. Youngest son, Jeremiah of Madison County, Kentucky, also gave North Carolina as his birthplace in the 1850 census which serves to disprove the theory of Halifax, Virginia origins. The colonial tax records of Halifax also have no record of this Reeves’ family. Wake County NC has countless deeds and court records which document his presence there from the county’s inception in 1771. He was, at various times, tax collector, tax assessor and justice of the Wake County Court over a 30 year period until his migration to Kentucky. He is recognized by the DAR as a Revolutionary War Patriot based upon his civil service as a tax assessor in Wake County during the revolution.

The Reeves Review listed William Reeves, the son of James Reeves of Guilford County as the William Reeves who died in Madison County, Kentucky. However, 3 descendants of William Reeves’ son George are placed in DNA Group 6 of the Reeves DNA Project matching descendants of George Reeves of Grayson County, Virginia, while descendants of James Reeves and his father William Reeves of Granville, North Carolina have been identified with DNA Group 3 proving that a close genetic connection between the two families is impossible. A Johnston County deed of 1763 wherein William Reeves conveyed 400 acres on the Neuse River to William Reeves, Jr. establishes the identify of his father but his mother is still unknown.

William Reeves of Wake County, North Carolina and later of Madison County, Kentucky always wrote his name as REVES, as did all of his sons. George Reeves of Grayson County, Virginia and his sons whose decendants DNA matches the descendants of William Reeves also wrote their name REVES. This was not the case with the Granville Reeves family who spelled their name REEVES.

The erroneous references to the wife of this William Reeves as Fortune Rhodes or Millicent are based upon the incorrect assertions of the Reeves Review that he was the son of James Reeves. The only documentation of William Reeves' wife is a Wake County Court Order of December 1791 regarding the removal of Penny Weaver's children from their apprenticeship to John Alston, and ordering that a summons issue for William Reeves and Any his Wife as witnesses for the orphans.

The internet may continue to be rife with the false allegations of the Reeves Review and the other copious sites repeating misinformation, but I have, thanks to the deeds and court records of Wake County compiled a relatively complete profile of my ancestor William Reeves of Madison County, Kentucky:

He lived most of his life before migrating to Kentucky on 400 acres on the south side of the Neuse River and east of Ellerbe’s Creek that his father, William Reeves, Sr. had been granted by Henry McCullough in 1746.

As the county in which that land was designated changed over the next 60 years - he lived in Orange, Johnston and finally Wake County when it was formed in 1771. The pilings of the I-85 bridge on the western side of Falls of the Neuse Lake stand on this property which is currently in Durham County.

He was prominent in the community, serving as a justice of the Wake County Court for approximately 20 years.

We still know little of his wife Anne (Any) except that she was not Fortune Rhodes or Millicent.

His children and the heirs of deceased children are all named in the Madison County, Kentucky deed by his heirs to the youngest son Jeremiah in 1822.

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Other posts pertaining to this family:

The Cumberland Gap
George Reeves of Warren County, Kentucky
Peter Reves of Halifax County, Virginia
The Reves Family of Halifax County, Virginia
George Reeves of Grayson County, Virginia
More Reeves Signatures
A Reeves Fiction - Fortune Rhodes

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Website - William Reeves from Wake County, North Carolina to Madison County, Kentucky

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Teressa Jane Reeves Henderson

Long ago, in Little Rock, I had the not so common privilege of actually knowing my great-grandmother. I called her Gambau; my mother and her siblings called her Mamau Henderson. She was born Teressa Jane Reeves in 1879 in Newark, Independence County, Arkansas, a great-granddaughter of Jordan Reeves Jr and Mary Magness, early settlers of that location.

Physically, Tressie was a tiny person. I surpassed her in height by the time I was ten years old. I was fascinated by her pierced earlobes, which hung nearly to her shoulders (or so I thought) from decades of wearing heavy earrings. She swept her long white hair up in a bun that she wore on top of her head. In every picture I've ever seen of her, starting with this one as a young mother, until she died at age 79, her hairstyle was the same, her hair color being the indicator of time passing. A sturdy farm woman, she wore throughout her life the same calico cotton dresses made of feedsacks with button front, inset midriff or belt, and flared skirt ending just above her ankles. I have no doubt that she made those dresses herself, the sewing gene being deeply ingrained in me and my maternal line.

In 1896, Tressie married Johnny C Henderson, a man of diminutive stature, only slightly taller than she was. and had five children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Breaking with tradition, none of her children bore family names: Eula, Opal (a boy), Maudie (my grandmother), Beuna, and Rene (a boy), all names not used (thankfully) before or since in the family.

In this five generation picture taken in 1939, Tressie is second from the left. Tressie died in Little Rock in 1959. The child is my cousin Johnny.

The Yellow Cross

Last year, I read this book:

The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars Rebellion Against the Inquisition: 1290-1329
by Rene Weis

I was motivated to read The Yellow Cross because a Rives family figured prominently in the narrative. The Rives of Montaillou (in what is now southern France) were among those who resisted the Inquisition, thus burning at the stake for their beliefs.

Here is a brief review of the book that I wrote on Goodreads:

" Fascinating narrative derived from 700 year old depositions taken by the Inquisition in their relentless pursuit of heretics. Although the detail is at times overwhelming, the author succeeded in vividly depicting the lives of ordinary people of Languedoc during the middle ages, most of whom died for their rebellion against the Catholic church."

It has been suggested that the Ryves of Dorsetshire descended from the Rives of Languedoc, but nobody knows whether that is true or not. Nevertheless, I was entranced by the depiction of lives of ordinary (and real) people of hundreds of years ago.

The Yellow Cross is a challenging read but well worth the effort if you want to understand life in medieval Languedoc and learn a little about how an early Rives family lived.