Deitz Family Line
Mayhew-Skiffe-Reaves Branch
Elvis Presley
A new discovery today!
As I was researching one of my lines from my mother's branches I was notified that one of my Family Tree programs found another rather well known relative.
I am amazed at how small the world really is and how humanity is so connected to one another.
The line is a long one and through researching the various other lines that connect to this one I discovered it is a blood line that not only goes back to our mutual ancestral great grandparents but also goes back further to some very interesting people. Read on for my discoveries.
Today I introduce you to our 12th Cousin, Elvis......
Elvis Aron Presley
12th Cousin
Introduction
Ancestral England Connection
My family's relationship to Elvis is through our 11th Great Grandfather, Thomas Reaves and his sister, Mary Reaves Fitch. Thomas and Mary lived in the early to middle part of the 17th century in England.
Mary would be our 12th Great Aunt and Mary was Elvis Presley's 11th Great Grandmother.
So our 11th Great Grandfather and Elvis' 11th Great Grandmother were brother and sister like I and my brothers Jim and Jeff are the brothers to my sisters Jane and Jackie.
While researching this line I would discover that the family ancestry includes two "Lord Mayors" of London, at least four Royal Knights and one of the lines would eventually go back again to the Marshal family of the 11th and 12th century England with my 27th Great Grandmother, Maude FitzJohn Marshal being the sister of my 26th Great Grandfather, William Marshal from another line.
An example of one of the ancestral Great Grandfathers from this line is my 15th Great Grandfather:
Sir John Canfield Wiseman was an English nobleman who was Knighted by King Henry VIII in 1513 during what was called "The Battle of the Spurs". I will write on him in a future post.
The Reaves Family of Chelsea, England
Thomas and Mary were 2 of the 7 children of John Reeve and Mary Brock who were from an area of the English Isles called Chelsea (within present London), Middlesex, England.
Thomas was born in 1590 and his sister Mary was born in 1602.
My Ancestral 11th Great Grandfather Thomas married Ellen Garrett in 1616.
My Ancestral 12th Great Aunt Mary married Zachary Fitch in 1620.
Thomas and Ellen would have a child who would be My 10th Great Grandmother, Mary Margaret, who would be born in England on June 20, 1617.
Immigration to America & a New Life for Two Siblings
Both Thomas and Ellen and daughter Mary and his sister Mary and her husband Zachary immigrated to Colonial America around 1626 and landed in the Mass. Bay Colony (present Boston). From there the two siblings would separate and go their own ways......
Thomas' line to me
Thomas and Ellen would first settle in Weymouth Mass. where Ellen would die in late 1626 in her 35th year of life leaving Thomas with a young daughter.A few years later Thomas and his daughter Mary Margaret would eventually settle in Agawam (later Springfield Mass.).
In 1635, Willam Pynchon, then the assistant treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, led an expedition with John Cable and John Woodcock and Thomas Reaves either up the Connecticut River or west across land from the Boston settlement, to the site of the Native American village of Agawam (which was associated with either the Pocomtuc or Nipmuck tribe) on the western bank.
The lands nearest the river were both clear of trees due to occasional burns by the Indians, and covered in nutrient-rich river silt from occasional floods.
They constructed a pre-fabricated house south of the Westfield River in what is now Agawam, Massachusetts.
Cable and Woodcock were supplied with food and goods to trade over the winter.
Thomas fell ill shortly after arriving and died.
Mary was taken in by one of the families that settled the area and would eventually marry my 10th Great Grandfather, Thomas Skiffe and settle on the island of Martha's Vineyard.
During the next 9 generations my ancestors would eventually migrate westward from Mass. to Conn. and to Vermont and finally to Wisconsin, where in the early 1900s, my Dietz family tree from my mother would culminate in me and my siblings and eventually their children.
My 12th Great Aunt Mary's Line to Elvis
My 12th Great aunt and uncle, Mary and Zachary Fitch, would settle in Reading Mass.
The line to Elvis would continue through the states of Virginia and Mississippi to Kentucky and end up back in Mississippi where 10 generations later, the King of Rock and Roll would be born.
Elvis came from a mix of heritage and race similar to mine including English and Jewish German and more....
My Family Line to Elvis Presley
Elvis Aron Presley is our 12th cousin once removed.
Jane, John, James, Jackie, Jeff
→ Marlene Grace Repinski
your mother → Raymond Harold Dietz
her father → Grace Elizabeth Dietz
his mother → Henry Allen Pope
her father → Thomas Paschal Pope
his father → Thomas Faunce Pope
his father → Ruth Pope
his mother → Mary Hammond
her mother → Sarah Holmes
her mother → Bethiah Clarke
her mother → Mary Mayhew
her mother → Mary Margaret Skiff
her mother → Thomas Reaves (11th GGF)
her father → Mary Fitch (12th GA)
his sister → Sarah Weston
her daughter → Edward Wesson
her son → William Wesson
his son → Edward Wesson
his son → John Wesson
his son → William Wesson
his son → Edward Clanton Wesson
his son → Martha Jane Presley
his daughter → Rosella Elizabeth Presley
her daughter → Jessie D. McDowell Presley
(His surname should have been Wallace but Rosella was unmarrried
and gave her maiden name to her son Jesse)
(His surname should have been Wallace but Rosella was unmarrried
and gave her maiden name to her son Jesse)
her son → Vernon Elvis Presley
his son → Elvis Aron Presley
his son
A Short Biography of Elvis' Life
Elvis Aaron Presley, in the humblest of circumstances, was born to Vernon and Gladys Presley in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8, 1935.
Twins Jesse & Elvis was named after their great grandfather, Jesse Elvetus.
His twin brother, Jessie Garon, was stillborn, leaving Elvis to grow up as an only child. He and his parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1948, and Elvis graduated from Humes High School there in 1953.
Elvis’ musical influences were the pop and country music of the time, the gospel music he heard in church and at the all-night gospel sings he frequently attended, and the black R&B he absorbed on historic Beale Street as a Memphis teenager. In 1954, he began his singing career with the legendary Sun Records label in Memphis. In late 1955, his recording contract was sold to RCA Victor. By 1956, he was an international sensation. With a sound and style that uniquely combined his diverse musical influences and blurred and challenged the social and racial barriers of the time, he ushered in a whole new era of American music and popular culture.
He starred in 33 successful films, made history with his television appearances and specials, and knew great acclaim through his many, often record-breaking, live concert performances on tour and in Las Vegas. Globally, he has sold over one billion records, more than any other artist. His American sales have earned him gold, platinum or multi-platinum awards for 150 different albums and singles, far more than any other artist. Among his many awards and accolades were 14 Grammy nominations (3 wins) from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, which he received at age 36, and his being named One of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation for 1970 by the United States Jaycees. Without any of the special privileges his celebrity status might have afforded him, he honorably served his country in the U.S. Army.
His talent, good looks, sensuality, charisma, and good humor endeared him to millions, as did the humility and human kindness he demonstrated throughout his life. Known the world over by his first name, he is regarded as one of the most important figures of twentieth century popular culture. Elvis died at his Memphis home, Graceland, on August 16, 1977.
Elvis' Other Ancestors
What is less known about Elvis on his paternal side is that some of his ancestors came from Germany, their original surname was Pressler. They were part of the Sinti people, known as the "Black Dutch." It is also likely that from his mother's side, Smith by surname, the family would have been of Romanichel origins.
His surname, Presley, is anglicized from the German name Pressler from Elvis' ancestor Johann Valentin Pressler who immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1710.
Johann Valentin Pressler, a winegrower emigrated to America in 1710. Pressler came from a village in southern Palatinate called Niederhochstadt. Niederhochstadt became Hochstadt sometime during the 250 years after Johann Pressler left it, but there are still many Presslers there, among them a winegrower like Johann Valentin. Johann Valentin first settled in New York and later moved his family to the South.
The name was Anglicized during the Civil War by a Pressler serving in the Confederate Army, Presley and Dunn report in a forthcoming book on the Presley family.
Maternal Jewish Heritage
As unfathomable as it might seem, a little known fact is that Elvis Presley, by matrilineal descent, was halakhically Jewish. Historian and biographer Elaine Dundy writes about Elvis Aron Presley’s Jewish heritage in her book “Elvis and Gladys.
A look at the nomination of Elvis for the Jewish-American Hall of Fame yields the following information . . .
“…Nancy Burdine was married to Abner Tackett (Elvis’ great great maternal grandmother). Nancy was of particular interest to Gladys for her Jewish heritage, often remembering Nancy’s sons for their Jewish names Sidney and Jerome. Nancy and Abner had a daughter Martha who married White Mansell. The daughter which they named Octavia, nick-named Doll, who was Elvis’ maternal grandmother.”
“…Doll and Robert had nine children. Gladys Love was the fifth daughter born followed by 3 more brothers and one sister. After his mother died, Elvis personally sought to design his beloved mother’s gravesite which included a Star of David on Gladys Love Presley’s tombstone. The decision was made by him in honor of his Jewish heritage. Something his mother was proud of and acknowledged to Elvis at a very early age.
So Elvis’s great great maternal grandmother was Jewish and had a daughter who had a daughter who had a daughter that was Elvis’s mother.
Now you know a little bit more of the life and ancestry of Elvis Aron Presley.
Sources:
Geni.com
Wikitree
Wikipedia
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