The earliest known ancestor for this line is William Riley Mabe who was born 2 July 1881 in Hawkins County, Tennessee and died 18 July 1952 in Webster County, Iowa. Initial DNA testing did not show any matches with expected ancestors, but did show an exact 25/25 match with the group of already tested Augusta BERRYs. Knowing that there had been a group of BERRYs in early Hawkins County, a descendant of that group was located and his DNA test shows an exact 37/37 match with William Riley Mabe. While the BERRY parent of William Riley Mabe cannot be positively identified at this time, traditional research indicates that it is most likely that his MABE surname was acquired through a non parental event, in this case almost certainly an unrecorded adoption. Research is on-going to identify William Riley Mabe’s BERRY ancestors from the larger extended BERRY family in Hawkins County, Tennessee and also to find the documentary evidence of the connection between the Hawkins BERRYs and the Augusta BERRYs.

October 5, 2005

Proximity of this line to other Berry lines may be seen by referring to these distance tables:

For 12 Marker Participant Distance Table, click .

For 25 Marker Participant Distance Table, click .

For 37 Marker Participant Distance Table, click .

For Combined Marker Participant Distance Table, click .