The First Last Names: The Roman Empire Names are fascinating. Our entire life experiences, all we are, summed into a few primordial utterances. Today, the notion of choosing a surname is foreign to us. They are inherited, inscribed upon us at birth and (particularly in today's world) nearly impossible to fully detach from. For some, a surname can be a great source of shame or despair, a reminder of unfortunate relations. However, for a Reeves, it is the badge of honor it was originally meant to be. The essence of a family is belonging. Be it similar surroundings, a common ancestor, or shared principles, a family at its core is a group of people unified by a sense of belonging. When two partners choose one another as mates, they become the atom of the family unit. Any children those partners have become new atoms in a family molecule. In an ancient tradition that is increasingly lost in today's independent society, often those children would choose partners of their own, and the immediate family molecule would grow exponentially, sometimes with a dozen or more individuals forming a single family unit. In the time of Pagan domination in Europe, it was not uncommon to find ten, twelve, or more individuals residing in a single domicile. A sense of belonging was physical, the family unit close-knit. The idea of family is not entirely different today from what it has always been: a group of related persons, bound by blood and by a sense of home. Many of us live in large families that are compartmentalized, some by geography, some by personality, some by circumstances of a variety of fashions. One of the threads that ties us together, even in today's world where physical distance is increasingly less distant, is our name. Once society developed to the point that families lived long enough to establish many generations in one place, families sometimes became clans, political entities in and of themselves, and these great families divided into septs, small groups within a larger family. It was at this point in Roman history that the Empire began to use family names as a form of address and to identify their family legacies and influences. However, when the Empire fell, along with so much of its technology and social advancement, surnames in Europe vanished. The reintroduction of surnames would come not for the love of family, but from the need for power. The Resurgence of Surnames: The Norman Conquest In the late 11th century, the Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, led his armies from the heart of the northwest of modern France - rich with the blood of the Vikings, which for almost 200 years prior had come to settle and build in the region, giving rise to the land of the Nordmen, later "Normandy" - on a march into the vacuum of power created in England by the death of Edward the Confessor without an heir. In 1066, assembled a massive fleet of ships and an army unlike those since Roman times. Many of those recruited into service were not the honored first-born sons, who would inherit the lands, titles, and power of their fathers, but second- and third-born sons. Under the ancient traditions of primogeniture, these children would get little, but in the service of William they were promised their own distinct land holdings and titles. In this ancient world, land was power, and a title was a key to unlock doors to success. Bringing a prefabricated wooden castle, William established a foothold fortress at Pevensey in County Sussex in the south of England, a mere 133 miles from the future seat of the great Ryves line. A month later, William marched into Hastings to challenge Harold Godwinson, master of the Sussex domain. The Battle of Hastings was legendary, but not nearly the rout so many think it to be. The battle was close, but in the final hours, Harold was killed and the Saxons retreated, leaving William to move forward and begin his large-scale (but hardly complete) domination of England. As promised, those second- and third-born children began to become the Norman Lords. When an Anglo-Saxon Lord gave his allegiance and served William well, he retained his holdings. When one died without issue, or resisted the new order, he was replaced with a Norman Lord. As such, the Norse and French blood of Normandy overtook the old aristocracy. What we today know as "England" is a fusion of old Anglo-Saxon order and this new Norman order. As part of this new order, it is thought, family names once more became essential. To maintain order, to track family movement and force, and to appropriately tax the holdings of family land, it is thought that surnames returned once more to the western world. The Origin of Reeves It is at this point in history that so many Reeves remember the story they were told that our name comes from the word "sheriff." It is true that even prior to the Norman Invasion, England had been governed by a very sophisticated system. The lands had been divided into roughly-equal shires, governed by a shire reeve, or sheriff, a position created by the Anglo-Saxons in roughly the 7th century. These shires were somewhat analagous to our modern-day American counties. While it is logical that one would see the term and see our last name and assume a relation, it is unlikely that this is the true origin of our name. This is not to say that Reeves were not people of great influence and governing authority. As you've read, the Normans came to modern England from what is today France. It is known that even today there is a region in the Lot-et-Garonne department of modern Aquitaine known as du Rives, or "of the riverbank." This is also the name of a great merchant family there. It is the opinion of several researchers - among them Barry Reeves and Paul Reeves, whose opinion I share - that the modern Reeves came from the Ryves of Dorset, England, who were Norman aristocrats, whose origins are in this Midi-Pyrénées region. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, a microhistorian of repute, authored the work Montaillou, village occitan, which tells of the small village of Montaillou. The story-like work is based upon the records of Jacques Fournier who later became Pope Benedict XII. When Fournier came to The Vatican, he brought his work with him, and to this day, these remarkable documents from the late 13th century are preserved. Through chance or fate, to whichever you subscribe, a critical snapshot of the most ancient of Reeves family is preserved in the story of Fabrice Rives, a wine seller in the village, and his daughters Alazaïs and Grazide. This snapshot provides, in my view, a compelling piece of evidence that the Reeves origins are in France. Based upon the United Nations map of Europe drawn in 2002, I believe the following provides a rough visual aid of the Reeves' family journey. The "S" It is important to remember when discussing the spelling of surnames that the act of naming people predates general literacy. The notion of spelling was, for a very long time, simply a relative artform. Phonetically, the IPA expression of our name's original pronunciation is [riv], or "reev." The French spelling of this was Rives, with the last "S" being silent. The spelling is incidental to the fact that the name was pronounced [riv]. After the family crossed the channel to England, the "ee" sound was expressed (as was common) with the vowel "Y." This changed the spelling of the name to Ryves, still pronounced "reev." This spelling was relatively consistent until the late 18th century. When the Ryves came to the Colonies of America, many changed the spelling to "Rives," probably out of simplicity if nothing else. It was at this point with the convergence of so many cultures in the early "melting pot" of America that people who had no common frame of reference began to pronounce the spellings they read. Rives was pronounced (as we can easily imagine) "reevz" instead of "reev" by some, and by still others "raiv" or "raives." It was at this point that the double-E likely appeared, and the "S" became the divider between Reeves and Reeve. Those who wished to retain the spelling and the tradition of the "S" final consonant - and this is the case for many later immigrants particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries - would often opt for "Reeves," whereas those more concerned with pronunciation would opt for "Reeve." The truth of the matter is that Reeves and Reeve families, along with those who successfully preserved Ryves and even Rives, are generally part of the same ancient family. In the final equation, there are those who believe we are "sheriffs," and those who believe we are "of the riverbank." There is little in the way of disproving the former, but to those who spend so much time immersed in the earliest known annals of our family history, the evidence that mounts is compelling. Even today, the Rives papers produced in southwestern France are the finest quality, and the number of Ryves and Reeves families that still bear the greyhound and live along shorelines is, if not scientific, the basis of a strong "feeling" that our surname origin is, literally, immersed in the waters of time. Across the Pond It was in the middle of the 17th century when the English civil war, led by Oliver Cromwell, sought to depose the seated aristocracy and convert England into a democratic republic. It was during the earliest days of the seating of Cromwell as Lord Protector and amidst the fiercest strife that young William Rives I fled the stormfront of Oxford for the colonies, landing in Surry County, Virginia around 1654. William was imported to Virginia as an indentured servant, a common condition of passage during Colonial times by which a skilled individual would be granted passage overseas by a wealthy family with merchant ships in exchange for many years of mandatory labor. Generally these terms were approximately eight years to begin with, but the terms were frequently extended by a variety of means. (For more information, consult WikiPedia's article on the subject. The Reeves held a prominent place in Virginia after reestablishing their place among the notable citizens, and soon after began to amass landholdings in North Carolina. It was through the 18th and 19th centuries that the family's center migrated south and west. As a consequent, the vast majority of Reeves were Confederates at the time of the next civil war the family endured. The Best, Worst Thing a Genealogist Can Encounter In the Spring of 2007, the best, worst thing that could have happened to me as a genealogical researcher transpired. An incontrovertible set of new information came to my possession, and showed a significant, glaring error in what I had accepted - and indeed hundreds of Reeves had accepted - as gospel truth for a long, long time. It is a wonderful thing that another piece of the truth has come forth. It is a tragic thing that I feel as though I've lost thousands of relatives. It has been a very serious challenge for me as a researcher and as a Reeves. This is going to be an interesting chapter of my work as an amateur genealogist. The route I trace back to Robert the Progenitor is not going to be the same one I'd always thought. Instead of going through Surry County, Virginia, it appears likely that we came through Southhold, Long Island. In the end, I hope this will lead to a solid tie to the famous Ryves / Reeves of this line we've come to know, and ultimately better chart the path from Southhold to Dorset. In the interim, I am reposting the latest of what I have. Those of you familiar with "A Greyhound Sejant" as an online resource will note that some of the "click all the way back" paths seem fractured. That's because they are, by comparison. Until I get confirming evidence to support or refute some of the new data coming in, I've had to revise my "live version" of my files rather significantly to prevent inaccurate information from circling the net more than it already has. This is going to be very, very interesting... but since when do Reeves shy away from a challenge, right? You may return to the index, or continue to read about our Coat of Arms.