DNA testing brings Davis cousins together for reunion
Carla Davis used DNA testing and a genealogy website to solve the ultimate mystery: her own heritage.
She also put together the pieces of a 150-year-old family puzzle, helped a newly discovered cousin identify her biological parents, and connected with relatives she never knew she had.
Davis and dozens of her cousins from near and far will gather July 1 in Purvis for a family reunion. Many of them will meet face-to-face for the first time.
The Purvis native, who now lives in Dubai and London with her husband, whose family is in real estate and construction, was adopted by her maternal grandparents, Odis Davis and Virgie Smith Davis. Her mother, Billie Joyce “B.J.” Davis, died when she was 5, and she never knew who her father was.
“When I got old enough to talk to my mom’s friends, I did come up with a name,” Davis said. “When I did a DNA test in my 20s, it turned out he was not the father. It devastated me, I didn’t know where else to look. My mother’s siblings didn’t know anything. In 2012, the older I was getting, I thought if I do not start this journey now, the chances of me finding him alive were getting slimmer.”
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She hired a private investigator who turned up some leads, but none were her biological father.
In 2013, she turned to DNA testing through Family Tree DNA and 23andMe.
“My closest match was a second cousin by the name of Ann Patterson. From the moment the results posted on 23andMe, Ann’s journey and my journey collided. Ann was an adoptee searching for her birth family. No longer was this about finding my biological father, I felt the need to help this woman who was in her 70s find her birth parents, and this became my mission.”
Davis asked her half-sister to take a DNA test, and the results confirmed that Patterson was from her maternal line, but not enough cousins had taken the test through those sites to determine which branch connected them.
“Two years had passed before we got another lead,” Davis said. “Then in August 2016, a close mutual cousin tested with 23andMe, and she matched with our cluster. Based on our shared centimorgans, this cousin and I shared a set of great-grandparents. Those great-grandparents were Charles Robert Davis and Missouri Louise Chambliss, and this was the branch we needed to research further for Ann.”
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Davis said Charles Robert Davis was “a man clouded in mystery.”
“Ironically, a month prior, I had been contacted by another cousin who descended from this couple regarding some information I had in a public family tree on Ancestry.com. I shared Ann's story hoping the story might be familiar, but no such luck. She suggested Ann and I test with Ancestry since they had the largest DNA database. Plus, she had recently found her half-sibling and the identity of her biological father through this testing site. So we did, along with the cousin who matched us at 23andMe.
“The results confirmed Charles and Missouri were indeed our set of common ancestors.”
There were rumors in the family that Charles Robert Davis had taken on another identity after accidentally killing a man in a brawl. Davis was able to confirm that his parents were Nicholas Perry Horton and Levy Jane Hayes.
One of Davis' cousins, Lora Long, remembered that her great-grandmother’s brother, Lewis A. Horton, had gone to Florida and disappeared. She shared with Davis a handwritten note with a tintype photograph of her great-grandmother’s brother. “Uncle Lewis Horton — went to Florida when he was 25 – Last letter was from Jacksonville and he was quarantined with yellow fever — never heard from again.”
Davis shared a picture of her great-grandfather and asked Long to compare it to her picture of Lewis A. Horton. The men were one in the same.
“While the deep scar on the face of Charles Robert Davis seems to indicate the rumors of a brawl could perhaps be true, no evidence can be found to support or discredit this allegation,” Davis said. “So the oral-lore will linger a while longer as to the ‘why’ Lewis A. Horton took on another identity, but the rumors as to who Charles Robert Davis was have been laid to rest, thanks to a cluster of cousins who set out on a journey to discover their roots through DNA. Each on a separate path, their stories intertwined and each became instrumental in reuniting a family after 150 years.”
Davis was eventually able to help Patterson determine the identity of her biological parents, Archie Ray Davis and Jewel Duffy Foster.
As for finding her own biological father, that took a while longer. She began piecing together her family tree using census records, marriage licenses, death records and obituaries. Then, using a process called data mining — taking DNA results and using close cousin matches to find shared ancestors — the pieces started coming together, but not enough to solve the puzzle.
“I needed a closer match, one that I did not have. My only option was to continue finding descendants of those common ancestors I had recently discovered, and be on the lookout for any individuals that lived in a specific area during a specific time. I was literally looking for a needle in a haystack.”
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Then, one day in late 2016, a name appeared on her computer screen that she had seen when she had hired the private investigator. The man — Randy Brewer — had died of prostate cancer in 2005, and his brother had told her he had never been able to have children, so she had crossed him off her list.
She called the phone number she had in her notes for the brother, and he agreed to take a DNA test with Ancestry.com.
“The man that tested was indeed my uncle. I had finally, after 46 years, found my father,” she said.
“It was, I can’t even explain what the feeling was in that moment. I was in disbelief. I felt like I found where I fit. I had learned through the journey where I fit in that family.”
Davis said she has become obsessed with genealogy, and she loves doing the research to learn about the lives of her ancestors.
“When I’m researching an ancestor, I feel like I’m putting flesh back on their bones,” she said.
There have been so many “coincidences” during her journey of discovery that she believes a higher power has been guiding her.
In December 2016, she visited her new-found uncle and he took her to the cemetery to see her father’s grave. It had no headstone, so she decided to have one made. She was staying with her half-sister in Stone County and had an appointment with a monument company there, but something compelled her to drive to Purvis in a rainstorm to meet with the folks at American Monument to commission the headstone.
The man at American Monument said he thought the man who lived across the street had known her birth father, so she went over and introduced herself. Sure enough, he had been a friend of her father’s.
“When I was compelled to go to this monument place in the pouring rain, there was a reason. There were answers waiting for me,” she said. “I believe that this whole journey has been guided by something much greater than me.”
Davis expects 70 to 100 people to attend Saturday’s family reunion, including Brenda Blackburn, who will be driving down from Lake Washington, just below Greenville. She met Davis through Ancestry.com, but knew her mother when she was a child. Blackburn's father and Davis' grandfather were brothers.
"She was a beautiful girl," Blackburn said of Billie Joyce. "She was closer to my sister's age. When we would come to Mississippi to visit, my family would always stay with Uncle Odis and Aunt Virgie. Billie Joyce and my older sister, Bobbie, hung out together. I was only about 8 the last time we stayed with them."
Blackburn also used DNA to solve her own mystery.
"My father was Oscar Davis," she said. "Although his name was on my birth certificate and I grew up as his child, DNA results proved he was not my biological father. I was able to find out who that actually was with the DNA and research. The journey to that point only made my faith in God stronger, and my Davis name more treasured to me than it may be to most family members."
Blackburn is eager to meet so many of the cousins she has been communicating with for the past year.
"It is so important, I believe, to find out who you are, regardless of whether the circumstances are good, bad or whatever," Blackburn said.
Davis hopes more connections will be made, and more family mysteries solved.
“It literally is this big reunion of families coming together who never knew each other," she said.
Davis family reunion
Descendants of Charles Robert Davis (a.k.a. Lewis A. Horton) and Missouri Louise Chambliss or their family are invited to attend the reunion. Their children were "Doll" Davis Boone, Carrie Davis Whiddon, Archie Davis, Talmadge Davis, Tullie Davis, Culloh Davis, Odis Davis and Oscar Davis.
When: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, July 1
Where: Mill Creek Community Center, 4403 Old Highway 11, Purvis
Anyone with information on Archie Ray Davis, his wife, Mary, or her niece, Jewel Duffy Foster, can email dnasquad.carla@gmail.com.