Reeves Y-DNA Project Updates - March 2005

Originally notified to the Reeves-L mailing list by Barry Reeves on 01 March 2005 (accessed May 2019) and reformatted for inclusion here.


Hi Everyone,

I have some very exciting news to report on our Reeves DNA project. We have our second exact 25/25 match. This time it is real personal, because one of the matching results is mine. I received the news last Sunday night that I had a 12/12 match with Stephen Reeves # 28839. Stephen is the nephew of our REEVES-L list member Tommie Smith. Then just this evening the results of the remaining markers were received and we are an exact 25/25 match.

    Kit  18394 for Barry Leon Reeves  - 25/25 match - forms new match group  3
    Kit  28839 for Stephen Reeves     - 25/25 match - forms new match group  3

This means that we have about a 94% chance of a common ancestor within the last 300 years.

My research has indicated that I descend from William Reeves, Sr (1723 NC - 1821 SC) through his son Willis Reeves. Willis was the last son of William's marriage to his wife Elizabeth Lawson. There have been indications that after Elizabeth Lawson Reeves died, William remarried a woman named Elizabeth Thompson and a son named Thompson Reeves resulted from this second marriage. I have corresponded with Tommie Smith for quite a while. She has always suspected that her Great Great Grandfather Thompson Reeves (b. 1799) was this same son from the second marriage of William Reeves, Sr., but had found it difficult to prove.

Although much more work will be required and nothing is certain yet, I think we finally have the scientific evidence to support this connection. I can't tell you how exciting this is to me. I'll have to admit that I had my doubts in the beginning that I would ever see any positive results from the DNA testing, but I am totally convinced that this is the most important research tool that is available today. I can only hope that each of you will see similar results of your own in the very near future. Please join us in this extremely valuable project.

Please take a look at the latest results.

Link to the now stale Reeves DNA Project web pages on Rootsweb

Best Regards,


Barry Reeves