Page 108 - The Ancestry of Francis Bryan (1770-1863)

I had Shelley produce a graph using my Ancestry tree information and the DNA matches associated with me and my two siblings. The graph was produced with matches with whom we shared 20cM of autosomal DNA or greater. It has been eye-opening!
I have still not been able to label every cluster. Unfortunately many of the names of my DNA matches are attached to people that have either no tree or minimal tree information on Ancestry. Without the tree, the connection to the probable common ancestor cannot be found. BUT....when there are matches with reliable trees of a significant size, then the common ancestor becomes obvious.
THE REAVIS FAMILY
As I cross referenced the names on the graph to my Ancestry DNA matches I noticed one area, one moderate sized cluster of names that was closely associated with Francis Bryan and his descendants. The names in this cluster seemed vaguely familiar. Further research showed that they were my matches to the Pace/Posey/Harris/Reavis DNA Circle that had previously had me stumped.
And here they were again.
Over a period of two weeks, I manipulated ThruLines and placed ancestors from each of the four families as possible parents to Francis Bryan.
I had a few ThruLine matches with descendants of the Posey, Harris and Pace families. The matches to these families were within the 10 cM range plus or minus a few centimorgans. The Reavis matches were more substantial. Not only were there more matches, to more descendants, but the shared cM was generally greater, with 8 matches between 15 and 30 cM .
The first immigrant of the Reavis family was Edward Reavis (1680-1751). It is believed that Reavis was an assumed name, not his birth name. The first record of Edward in America is in 1721. The pronunciation of the name Reavis is unique. It rhymes with the word "crevice"!
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