Hannah Smith's Husband - William Rives

Countless family trees list the wife of William Reeves who died in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1816 as Hannah Smith, most of them using the Reeves Review II as a source. In an effort to prove or disprove this connection, I found the marriage license of Hannah Smith to William RIVES in Mecklenburg County recorded on 14 Dec 1820 which I mentioned as Myth #7 in a previous post about the numerous myths circulating in Reeves' genealogy especially in regard to the Reeves' family of Granville County, North Carolina. Since this marriage took place four years after the 1816 death of William Reeves, it is obviously incorrect. This data was apparently submitted to the Reeves Review by someone who did not properly research the individuals involved.

A search of the deed records of Mecklenburg County produced a quit claim deed by the heirs of Daniel Smith of that county assigning their rights to any legacies from his estate to their mother Elizabeth (Deed Book 24, page 133). Additionally that 1822 Quit Claim Deed named William "Reaves" as the husband of Hannah Reaves, daughter of Daniel Smith. From that quit claim deed, the parents of Hannah Smith were confirmed as Daniel Smith and Elizabeth Darnall, but even though William Rives appeared many more times over the course of the next 25 years in the deed records of Mecklenburg County, there was no clue to his origins.

William's name was recorded as Rives, Reaves and at times Reeves over those 25 years but since he was the only William with any variation of the Reeves name in Mecklenburg County during those years, it can be assumed that all of these references refer to the husband of Hannah Smith. It appears that Hannah died before the 20th of July 1824 for on that date, William Rives married Jane Cunningham in Mecklenburg County. He apparently continued to have a relationship with the Smith family for he was the witness in further documents filed by the heirs of Daniel Reeves regarding his estate in 1835.

There were no deeds in the Mecklenburg records listing William Rives as either a grantor or grantee after 1847 which created the impression that he was deceased before 1850. Estate Settlement Book 6 on page 358-359 lists the inventory of the estate of William Rives decd and a continuation on Page 451 of that book makes a reference to the estate of William & Mary Rives deceased, formerly residents of the state of North Carolina. There was nothing to indicate the nature of the connection, just their names.

Because the surname "Rives" had been the most consistently used in the Mecklenburg records for William's transactions, I began to research other Rives' families of North Carolina in hopes of finding a missing child, William. For once, I found the answer to the mystery in the first place I looked - the estate file of William McGuffey Rives of Warren County, North Carolina. In his 39 page estate file there were documents from the executors of the Mecklenburg, North Carolina estate of William Rives, deceased, regarding distributions from the estates of William McGuffey Rives and his deceased wife, Mary Catherine Turner Rives. William, the son of Mary C. Turner and William McGuffey Rives was previously believed to have died in South Carolina circa 1845, but then that's not too far off since Mecklenburg County is on the border between North and South Carolina.

It's a shame that all genealogical mysteries can't be solved this quickly and painlessly.

A Multitude of Myths

There is probably no other Reeves' family about whom there are more unfounded myths reverberating around the world wide web than that of William Reeves who died in Granville County, North Carolina in 1751. Whether all of these myths and the associated misinformation were solely the products of The Reeves Review, is unknown. Many of them can be traced to that publication but may have been submitted to Mrs. Emma Reeves by others and are not based upon her own research.


William Reeves is recorded in the area of Chowan County, North Carolina prior to 1720. He had lived in Chowan, Bertie and Edgecombe counties, dying in Granville County in 1751. His descendants spread to Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and countless other states across the United States. The participants included in Group 3 of the Reeves DNA Project are descended from this family. The following are just a few of the incorrect beliefs associated with this family.

Myth #1
That William Reeves name was William Rives, William Cabell Rives or William Cabell Reeves - Nowhere in the historical documentation of this individual's life is there any record of a middle name or initial, much less the middle name Cabell. William Cabell Rives (1793-1868) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat from Albemarle County, Virginia. He represented Virginia in both the U.S. House and Senate and also served as the U.S. minister to France. That family is a completely different DNA lineage and is not related to the Reeves family of Granville, North Carolina.

Myth #2
That William Reeves who died in Granville County, North Carolina was descended from the Rives family of Dorset in Great Britain - Descendants of the Rives family of Surry County, Virginia as detailed in the book Reliques of the Ryves descend from that family and are a different DNA lineage (DNA Group 8) of the Reeves DNA Project. See Ancestry tree for that family who descend from Timothy Rives (1625-1692).

Myth #3
That William Reeves' wives were Martha Wylie and Margaret Burgess - There are no available documents in marriage, probate, or land records that support these names with the exception of the given name Margaret. Margaret was named as William Reeves' wife in his will but there is nothing to indicate her maiden name. The name Burgess seems to have been applied simply because it was used as a given name for her son, Burgess Reeves, born 1746. The surname Wylie speculated as the name of his first wife, is presumably based upon the use of the given name Wylie in succeeding generations of this Reeves' family.

Myth #4
That Isaac Reeves of Wilkes County, North Carolina was the son, Isaac, named in William Reeves 1751 will - Based upon the DNA of Isaac Reeves' descendants, there is no family connection between these families. Descendants of Isaac Reeves are represented in DNA Group 6 of the Reeves DNA project. It is far more likely that the Isaac Reeves who lived in Caswell County from its inception in the 1770's until around 1781 when he is described in a Caswell County deed as "of Randolph County" was the son of William Reeves named in his will. However, even that has not been proven but is a more reasonable assumption.

Myth #5
That Samuel Reeves of Rowan County, North Carolina was "Isaac Samuel Reeves" and the son of William Reeves - Samuel Reeves of Rowan County was the son of Thomas Reeves and Mary Murphy of Charles County, Maryland. This is substantiated by birth records in Maryland, the published history of Rowan County, and other documents that connect Samuel Reeves of Rowan County to other Maryland family members.

Myth #6
That William Reeves who died in York County, South Carolina in 1821 was William Reeves, Jr., son of William Reeves who died in Granville County in 1751 - The son of William Reeves would have been approximately 110 years old in 1821, having been born around 1710. The only William Reeves living in Granville County throughout the years 1755 to around 1790 when he moved to South Carolina was the son of Malachi Reeves. William is listed as a tithe of Malachi's in Granville County tax records beginning in 1755.

Myth #7
That William Reeves with wife Hannah Smith who died in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1816 was the son of William Reeves' grandson Malachi Reeves - There is no record that Malachi and Fortune Reeves had a child William and NO record in Guilford County, North Carolina of his existence. William Reeves, the son of James Reeves and brother of Malachi was the William Reeves who died in Wilkes County in 1816. His wife is identified as Hannah in several Guilford County deeds as early as 1784. James Reeves' son William was incorrectly identified as the William Reeves who died in Madison County, Kentucky in 1821. That William Reeves is a different DNA lineage (DNA Group 6) and is documented in the records of Wake County, North Carolina as not having been a member of this family. As for Hannah Smith, it was a William RIVES that she married in Mecklenburg County in 1820 (4 years after the William Reeves of Wilkes County's death). See copy of marriage license at right (note his signature is Rives).

And the most outrageous myth of all, Fortune Rhodes, deserved it's very own post. See A Reeves Fiction - Fortune Rhodes.

As lengthy as this post is, it is only the tip of the iceberg for there are many more fictions regarding this family in numerous sources. With the availability of DNA testing and original probate documents online, we can only hope that these myths will eventually begin to fade from the mainstream of Reeves' genealogy.