To date, I have only been able to confirm my Hollis line completely to Rufus Hollis (b. 1814 in SC) and Martha Powell of Marion, Union Parish, Louisiana (My 2nd great grandparents). [1] They were married in Union County, Arkansas in 1845. She died sometime after 1853 and he died about 1869 - both in LA. Rufus had at least 2 other wives (1st - Nancy Pool and 3nd - Catherine Whitehead). Their graves have not been located. He did not appear to own any land in LA so he likely was a sharecropper living on rented land. Martha was probably the daughter of Bartlett Powell of Edgefield District, SC.
(Alabama State Archives)
At this point my Hollis family tree looks like this:
(Click on highlighted text to go to the page)
John Hollis+Esther Canterbury (6th ggparents)
Fairfax, VA
Unknown - Likely Moses Hollis+Rosannah Hagen (5th ggparents)
Fairfax, VA & Fairfield District, SC
Unknown - Probably Sgt. Elijah V. Hollis+Alsey Knighton (4th ggparents)
Fairfield District, SC
Unknown - Possibly Reuben Hollis+unknown wife (3rd ggparents)
Fairfield District, SC
Rufus Hollis+Martha Powell (2nd ggparents)
South Carolina, Union County, AR & Union Parish, LA
John William Hollis+Josephine Davis (ggparents)
Union Parish, LA & Douglas County, GA
Thomas Pierce Hollis+Zettie Jackson (gparents)
Douglas County, GA
William Jackson Hollis, Sr.+Martha Blair (parents)
Douglas & DeKalb Counties in GA
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[1]The mtDNA (Ancestry.com) results have helped me to prove that Rufus Hollis is my 2nd great grandfather due to having several close matches with present day individuals (male & female) with proven ancestry to Rufus and more importantly, these present day individuals can only be related to me due to the limited geographical area where they lived (Northern Louisiana). One has to be careful when examining the mtDNA matches with individuals on Ancestry.com. While the DNA results do prove that you are related to a particular person, the results do not tell you which surname you match with them. In my own case, I am related to a LOT of people in the south so I may match on one or several different surnames. One can narrow down the match by looking at the geography of where their ancestors lived but if you have numerous ancestors from SC or GA as I have, the mtDNA results may not be conclusive and/or definitive especially when one considers that Ancestry.com relies on the family trees supplied by their users and those trees may not be complete and/or accurate.
[2] I have found the DNA results to be ambiguous: I have a perfect yDNA match at 25 markers to a proven male descendant of Elijah V. Hollis, Jr.; However, at 37 and 64 markers, this match is not as close and their are other Hollis males that now are closer that were not close at 25 markers. I also personally provided a supposedly proven male descendant of Rufus Hollis with a yDNA test kit but his results indicated that we were not even remotely related yet there are other descendants of Rufus that are a fairly close match. This individual also supposedly took an mtDNA test and he again did not appear to be remotely related. (I personally did not witness the sample being taken from this male descendant so the results cannot be relied upon.)
In addition to the many yDNA matches that I have to men with the Hollis surname, there are several yDNA matches to men with the Going/Goins/Goyen/Gowin, Keith and Wallace surnames which indicates that there was an adoption that took place either in the early 1700s or earlier. If one looks at the early censuses for Fairfield District, there are a few men with the Going surname listed living close to the Hollises possibly indicating a close relationship that is likely due to being related at some level and may have even moved together from VA to SC. Visit this website for more on the Going/Goins/Goyen family.
Lastly, according to the DNA testing that I have done, my yDNA haplogroup is E-M2 which has African origins. This means that my Hollis male paternal line can be traced back to an African ancestor at some point in time. When this occurred is not known but all of the Going/Goins/Gowin/Keith yDNA matches all share this same E-M2 haplogroup. If current yDNA testing is proven accurate in the future, then most likely there was an interracial marriage or childbirth of a male that took place well before our Hollis ancestors arrived in America. Whether this took place hundreds or thousands of years ago cannot be determined at this time but if one follows the history of African slave trading, it may have been as recent as the 1500-1700 time period. Interestingly, according to my Ancestry.com mtDNA testing, there is zero African DNA in my results; However, based on my experience with Ancestry.com's DNA accuracy, they are not going back very many generations - at least at this time. It also is more focused on maternal rather than paternal DNA. Tempering all of my speculation here is the information put out by the Mormon church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) that the entire human race began in Africa. Does current DNA testing of the E-M2 haplogroup extend that far back in time? All that can be said with any confidence today is that I have a proven African male ancestor somewhere in my lineage.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When one researches the Goins/Gowen/Going family ancestry one will find numerous references by researchers which claim the USA Goins/Gowen/Going family descends from an Angolan man (negro) who was brought to America in the early 1600s as a slave/indentured servant that gained his freedom a few years after his arrival. As the story goes, his offspring intermarried with both African, Native American and European (white) women. Some of these descendants claim to have become the Melungeons of Appalachia but Jack Goins and a few others have disputed this theory based on the lack of evidence to support the claims: The spelling of the Angolan man's name was questioned as well as the names of his children so there is no paper trail that proves his name or descendants. While it is true that the Melungeons have mixed race ancestry, I don't think anyone has definitively linked the Angolan man to the Melungeons or the Goins family in particular.
Yes, the yDNA haplogroup E-M2 shared by most of us Hollis, Goins and Keith men does seem to support a common male African ancestor; However, it is not known WHEN this African ancestor lived and it is a giant leap to claim this Angolan African man as the progenitor without some proof.
But the yDNA is a very interesting research tool for us Hollises. With little evidence regarding the parents of John Hollis of Fairfax (b. abt. 1700) one can only speculate about his ancestry; However, with the southern Hollis men that can trace their ancestry to John of Fairfax matching the yDNA of so many Goins/Going/Gowen and Keith men, there certainly was an adoption or name change of a male at some point and it might have occurred in the 1600s. And if one considers the close relationship that the Goins/Going/Gowen families had with the Hollises from the 1700s to the mid 1800s, it is almost a certainty that they were aware of their kinship which leads me to believe the adoption/name change was probably in the late 1600s. There is even a 1700s record of our John Hollis of Fairfax witnessing a document of a Goins widow whose maiden name is thought to be Keith.
So, was a Goins male adopted by a Hollis or vice versa and when did it occur? How does the Keith family fit into the picture?
Lastly, before doing any research on the Angolan slave/indentured servant that went by the name John Graweere/Geaween) it is strongly suggested that any researcher read the information found at the links below before forming an opinion about this man because much of the historical information posted online, written in books and scholarly papers may NOT be accurate. I personally would trust the recent research of Doug Goyen and Jack Goins above anything written prior. The main issue with most published histories and family trees is that there is nothing proving the children or wife (wives?) of this John Graweere man. Regarding the E-M2 yDNA, there is currently no way that I am aware of to determine a timeline for this African ancestor of ours so to claim John Graweere as our African ancestor is conjecture. Most of the histories that I have seen claim that his surname was morphed from Gaeween to Gowen/Goin but the few documents that are available show his surname as Graweere not Geaween. Yes, it is still similar but again, there is nothing to connect him to the other Goins/Going/Gowen families of the time except that they were in Virginia and Maryland (as were most families of the time period - the tidewater area). Some say he is the progenitor of the Melungeons of Appalachia because he was black and his surname is similar to the Goins name. It is all speculation. About all we can say at this time is that we do have a male African ancestor (the E-M2 haplogroup is proven to have origins in central and southern Africa) in the male Hollis line - exactly when and where that ancestor lived cannot be determined from the sources available today. If we knew when this ancestor lived, we might be able to narrow things down and hopefully the advances in DNA research will one day uncover the many mysteries.
Angolan Immigrant John Graweere (or Geaween):
https://goyengoinggowengoyneandgone.com/john-graweere-or-geaween/
Melungeons:
https://jackgoins.blogspot.com/
Goins:
https://goyengoinggowengoyneandgone.com/y-dna-for-goyen/
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/goins?iframe=ydna-results-overview
Hollis yDNA:
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Hollis?iframe=ydna-results-overview
E-M2 yDNA Haplogroup:
https://discover.23andme.com/haplogroup/E1b1a1-paternal
https://www.yourdnaguide.com/ydgblog/ydna-haplogroup-e
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E-M2