Curtis F. Reeves' Missing Children

Confluence of the Ohio & Tennessee Rivers at Paducah, Kentucky

My 2nd great grandfather's brother, Curtis F. Reeves was born on the 24th of January, 1807 in Madison County, Kentucky to George Reeves and Elizabeth Wilkerson. Curtis died in 1845 at the young age of 38. For many years Eliza Bryant who he married in McCracken County, Kentucky in 1841 was believed to be his only wife and their sons Benjamin F., born about 1843 and William H. born a year later were thought to be his only children. A few years ago I became aware of a prior marriage to Delilah Doolin of Butler County which was adjacent to Warren County where his family had moved around 1820.

Although there is no marriage recorded between Curtis F. Reeves and Delilah Doolin, in April of 1833 after the death of her father, Delilah, her mother Nancy and her siblings conveyed a tract of land on the banks of the Green River in Butler County, Kentucky to Jesse Lee. Curtis Reeves signed that deed as the husband of Delilah Doolin which establishes that they had married at some time prior to early 1833. Within the next couple of years following the death of their mother, Curtis along with his younger brothers William H. and Sidney Preston Reeves left Warren County and migrated to the westernmost area of Kentucky where they were recorded in McCracken County by 1840. A biography of his brother William Harrison Reeves states that he left Warren County as a teenager after the death of his mother and lived in the household of an older brother in the Jackson Purchase area.

Throughout the later part of the decade 1830-1840, Curtis is found in various records of McCracken County. In January of 1839 he was appointed to the county court as a Justice of the Peace. The 1840 census of McCracken County shows that Curtis and Delilah had seven children by 1840. The census of that year lists their household as including 2 males 0-5, 1 male 5-9, 1 male 10-15, 1 male 30-39, 2 females 5-9, 1 female 10-15 and 1 female 30-39. Delilah apparently died sometime shortly after that census was recorded in 1840 for in March of 1841, Curtis was remarried to Eliza Bryant in McCracken County.

14 January 1839
Court Order Book A, pg 370

By July of 1840, Curtis resigned his position as a Justice of the Peace. The court order book where it is logged gives no explanation or reason for the resignation. The two sons born during his marriage to Eliza Bryant were born in Kentucky in 1843 and 1844 after which he moved to Mississippi County, Missouri. The Goodspeed's biography of his son William H. states that "owing to the overflow of that year", he became disgusted with the country (Missouri) and returned to his native State. However, he later returned to Missouri where he died in Wayne County in 1845. By 1850 his widow with their two sons had returned to Missouri where she had remarried to an Edward Fleece and was living in Mississippi County as recorded in that census. None of Curtis' children from his marriage to Delilah Doolin are listed in the household and their whereabouts are unknown.

Over the years I have searched the households of other Reeves' family members for these children but have never found any likely candidates, other than a 16 year old George Reeves living in the household of Curtis' brother William Harrison Reeves in 1850. However, since he had another nephew of that name and age, there is no way to determine whether this was one of Curtis' orphans. I continue to search for Curtis' children and hopefully someday I'll have some success.

In the meantime, I have found one possibility in Y-DNA matches. A few years ago I found a male third cousin who was willing to do a Y-DNA test for which I paid so we would have genetic evidence of any family connections. Among those DNA matches is an individual with the surname Davis. I have written to this individual but he appears to now be deceased. Besides having Y-DNA that matches all the members of DNA Group 6A where descendants of this family are found, his earliest known ancestor is recorded as having been born in McCracken County, Kentucky in 1839. To add to the inferential evidence that this could have been one of Curtis' orphans, there are several connections with the Davis family in this area. Delilah Doolin's sister Sarah also married into the Davis family in Kentucky. Although this by no means proves that this Davis DNA match is one of Curtis Reeves' children, so far nothing has been found to rule it out. I'll just keep looking for these children in hopes of eventually finding them.

George Reeves of Warren County, Kentucky

We have profiled numerous George Reeves on this blog, but not my ancestor George who migrated from Wake County, North Carolina to Madison County, Kentucky and finally to Warren County. George was the son of William Reeves whose father of the same name was one of the earliest settlers in the area of present day Durham County, North Carolina. In 1746, as William Reeves, planter of Johnston County, North Carolina, he received a grant from Henry McCulloch for 400 acres on the south side of the Neuse River and east of Ellerbe Creek.

Madison County Marriage Bond
for George Reves and Elizabeth Wilkerson

Whether George was acquainted with Betsy Wilkerson prior to migrating to Kentucky is not known, but deed records of Granville County show that in 1786 Betsy's father Wyatt Wilkerson purchased a tract of land on the north side of the Neuse River at the mouth of Knap of Reeds Creek. Knap of Reeds Creek would have flowed into the Neuse almost directly across the river from William Reeves' land where Ellerbe Creek joins the Neuse River on the south side. An acquaintance and possible romance with Betsy may have even been the motivation for George, along with his younger brother Jeremiah, to leave North Carolina around 1800 when numerous Granville County residents including Wyatt Wilkerson were migrating to Fort Boonesborough in Madison County, Kentucky. In Madison County on the 5th of January 1802, George Reves married Elizabeth Wilkerson.

Most of George and Betsy's ten known children were born in Madison County. Their children were Walter Alvis Reeves, Susan Reeves Heard, Curtis F. Reeves, Jesse Britt Reeves, Peter M. Reeves, Mary "Polly" Reeves Turner, William Harrison Reeves, Nancy Reeves May Alderson, Sidney Preston Reeves and George H. Reeves.

George's father William remained in Wake County for several years after George and Jeremiah relocated to Kentucky. It is unknown exactly when he left North Carolina but his last appearance as a Justice in the minutes of the Wake County Court was in May of 1803. Sometime in the next few years, William Reeves, Sr., along with his son William, Jr. and his young family, also left North Carolina for Madison County buying a tract of land on Otter & Muddy Creeks where he was recorded in the 1810 census. When William Reeves died in 1821, George was an administrator of the estate.

Gravestone of daughter
Mary M. Reeves Turner
 

Several years before William Reeves' death, George and his family had joined Wyatt Wilkerson and other members of Betsy's family in migrating further westward to Warren County, Kentucky. In Warren County, they appear to have settled around Richardsville on a ridge high above the Barren River, a little north of Bowling Green. George Reves will written in 1826 was probated in Warren County in July of 1827. His name in the 1826 will was written as "Reves" as all of the family had historically spelled their name, but over the next generation most of his descendants began to use the more common variation
"Reeves".

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.

Tombstone Tuesday - Peter M. Reeves

PETER M. REEVES

BORN
Oct. 19, 1810

DIED
April 4, 1882

Gone but not forgotten

Peter M. Reeves is buried in the Mt. Zion Church of Christ Cemetery in Richardsville, Warren County, Kentucky. The community is on a high ridge above the Barren River a few miles north of Bowling Green.

Peter was the son of George Reeves and Elizabeth Wilkerson whose families migrated from the Neuse River area of North Carolina to Kentucky. The Reeves came from the south side of the Neuse in Wake County and the Wilkersons were located on the north side in Granville County for many years before leaving for Fort Boonesborough in Madison County, Kentucky around 1800.

By 1820 George Reeves and his family had moved further west to Warren County along with the extended Wilkerson family. Peter remained in Warren County, married Sarah Hudnall in 1831 and raised his family there.

Decendants of Peter M. Reeves have participated in the Reeves DNA Project and been placed in DNA Group 6.

A new trend toward posthumously bestowed middle names.

I keep noticing a recent trend toward adding middle names or initials to ancestors where there are no such “middle” names in any of the primary source documents regarding that person’s life.

"Among the British stock of the southern colonies middle names were rarely bestowed on children until after the Revolution and did not become customary until the mid-1800s.

During the 17th century, fewer than one in a thousand male Virginians of British stock carried a middle name. Studies of public records in several Virginia counties suggest that parents gave their children more than one name so rarely that the practice was essentially nonexistent."

Middle Names in the Southern Colonies from Bob’s Genealogical Filing Cabinet.

Here are just a few of the Reeves individuals’ that I have encountered with recently acquired middle names –

William Reeves who died in Granville County, North Carolina in 1751 appears in several places throughout the internet with the middle name “Cabell”. I spend an exorbitant amount of time researching North Carolina Reeves yet have never seen either William Reeves or his son William Reeves, Jr.’s names written with a middle initial or a middle name. Not in the tax, court and deed records of Granville, Edgecombe or Chowan counties of North Carolina. Is William Reeves of Granville, North Carolina being confused with William Cabell Rives of Albemarle, Virginia?

William Cabell Rives (May 4, 1793 – April 25, 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. See Wikipedia

My ggg grandfather, George Reves (Reeves) who died in Warren County, Kentucky in 1827 appears to have been given the name "George William Reeves" by several websites. Yet in none of the primary historical documents located these past thirty years has he been listed with that or any middle name. I also find it odd that if he did, in fact, have a middle name it would be William since he had a brother just a few years older by that name.

Mary Jordan, the wife of George Reeves, born 1716, has been referred to as Mary "Charlotte" Jordan in numerous websites. There are very few historical records naming Mary Jordan and in none of them does she have the name Charlotte or any other middle name. George and Mary Jordan were the parents of Charlotte Reeves Robertson of Nashville fame.


Recently I noticed on Ancestry.com that someone has given Peter Reves, the brother of my ggg grandfather George Reves of Warren County, Kentucky, mentioned above, the middle initial "T". Peter relocated from Wake County, North Carolina to Halifax County, Virginia where he was at one time the sheriff and in his later years chairman of the county court. In none of the extant documents that were executed by him does he include either a middle name or initial in his signature.

What's up with this? Why do we need to give them middle names?