|
1. William RYVES was born about 1636 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. He died after 1695 in Prince George Co., Virginia.
RELIQUES OF THE RIVES (RYVES) Volume 1, by James Rives Childs, J. P. Bell Company, Inc., Lynchburg, Virginia, 1929. Facsimile Reprint Published 1994 by Heritage Books, Inc., 1540E Pointer Ridge Place, Bowie, Md. 20716, ISBN 0-7884-0091-6. Page 73.
Part II, The Virginia Family of Rives, Chapter I, William Rives, the Emigrant, is Children, and Descendents Through the Eldest Male Line.
I. William-1 Reeves (No. 208 and of the fifth generation in the English pedigree of the family) was born about 1636, presumably at Oxfordshire, England, the son of Timothy-4 Ryves (Richard-3, John-2, Robert-1), of Oxford City, Gentleman, by the latter's second wife, Elizabeth.
Although the descent of the emigrant, William Rives, unfortunately is not susceptible of record proof -- despite the fact that no pains have been spared in the effort to establish the fact beyond cavil -- inferential evidence thereof is by no means lacking.
Comparison of the baptismal names used by the first and later generations of the family in Virginia with those of the Oxfordshire branch of the Dorsetshire family reveals a striking similarity and gives strong support to the assumption that the emigrant ancestor of the Virginia family was the youngest son of Timothy Ryves. As a genealogist has remarked: "In old families, baptismal names were religiously adhered to, and it is almost a certinty that any line of descendants may be placed upon the main stem by attention to the baptismal names." (William and Mary Quaterly, zv, 23).
In the first five generations of the family in England there are fifty-six male members represented and, of these, the baptismal name recurs in all but three instances. In the Virginia family there are one hundred and eight male members recorded during the first five generations, of which the baptismal name reoccurs in all but twenty instances.
As noted by Anthony Wood in Antiquities of Oxford, Timothy Ryves was a member of St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Oxford. Upon a first application for a review of it from 1605 to 1645 did not reveal the name Reeves, Rives, Ryves, Rive "or anything like it at all." My informant added that it was not to be taken that "it is not there, but the parchment is so perished, and the ink so faded, that some parts are quite illegible."
A third and last search revealed an entry which, according to the examiner, "may refer to Mr. T. Rives. If correct it reads: William son of Timothie Rives was * * * 1644." It is possible that this refers to the date of bapism of William Rives; it could not have been the date of his birth.
Of this William Rives, the founder of the Virginia family, the only trace which remains in the records is recorded in Surry county, Virginia, where he is listed, in 1684 and 1695, among the tithables or taxpayers from Southwarke Parish, one of the two parishes into which Surry was divided at the time.
|
