MORE ON FRANCIS GRAVES OF GLOUCESTER CO. & ESSEX CO., VA, AND HIS DESCENDANTS, from The Graves Family Association.

“Francis Graves was previously believed to be the youngest son of Capt. Thomas Graves. It is now apparent that Francis was a son of someone else, and genealogy 220 has been created for this family. It was mentioned that you can see which lines have been tested so far by looking at the chart for genealogy 220 at http://www.gravesfa.org/chart220.pdf. In order to more fully define the DNA haplotype of Francis Graves and to help find his ancestry, we need to test descendants of other lines from Francis.

You can also see the possible relationship between genealogy 220 and other families that share a common ancestor on the chart at http://www.gravesfa.org/DNAchart228-connections.pdf. It is believed that most of the Graves families in the southern U.S. that share a common ancestry with Francis Graves were descended from him. Among the exceptions to that are some of the descendants of John Greaves of St. Mary’s Co., MD (genealogy 247) that moved to KY, and the family of John Graves and Margery Harvey of Randolph Co., NC (genealogy 77) that is probably descended from John Graves of Concord, MA (genealogy 166), based on family legend.

As you can see on the chart mentioned above, the families believed to descend from Francis include Thomas Sims Graves (gen. 94), Thomas Graves of Lunenburg Co. & Mecklenburg Co., VA (gen. 152), Thomas Graves of Culpeper Co., VA (gen. 177), James Graves and Mary Copeland of VA & GA (gen. 150), Peter Graves of Surry Co., NC (gen. 11), James Graves of Randolph Co. & Surry Co., NC (gen. 262), Leonard Graves of Culpeper Co., VA (gen.836), and William Graves of Gloucester Co., VA (gen. 889). It can be seen that some of these families have roots in Gloucester Co., VA, many lived in Culpeper Co., VA, and many later lived in Randolph Co., NC. Many of the Randolph Co. families later moved to Blount Co., AL, and to Indiana. Although additional DNA analysis will help connect some of these families, additional traditional research is the key to establishing and proving the exact connections. Your help is needed.

One branch of the family that is still confused and incorrect is that in genealogy 169 (Capt. Thomas Graves of VA), from William Graves who married Sarah Fisher. His line in that genealogy is Thomas1, John2, Thomas3, John4, John5, Thomas6, William7 m. Sarah Fisher. It can be seen on the charts for genealogy 169 that the DNA test for a descendant of Uriah Noah Graves (a son of William) matches that for the descendants of Francis Graves and also matches that for descendants of Thomas Sims Graves (genealogy 94), who was previously thought to be a son of this William Graves. It appears that Uriah Noah Graves is probably a brother of Thomas Sims Graves, and both are sons of a William Graves. The birth date of William Graves has been given as about 1755 by some researchers and about 1776 by others, and he has been listed with different wives and different children. The most likely answer to this confusion is that there are two different men named William Graves. We need to separate the two families and perform DNA testing on any lines that are still questionable. Again, your help will be needed.

ABOUT THIS BULLETIN: The above bulletin is copyright, written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves, ken-dot-graves-at-gravesfa-dot-org, formerly editor of the Graves Family Newsletter (no longer published).

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