Have any other descendants of Alabama RIALS/RYALS/etc. taken an autosomal DNA test? Yesterday I got a DNA match here at Ancestry that *may* point to a connection between the Pike and Coffee County branches in Alabama.
I descend from Edmund Rials of Pike County. He was probably a grandson of Nancy Rials of 1830 Dallas Co. The Pike Co. Rials seem to have come from Richland Co, SC.
The match I got yesterday was to a descendant of Archibald Rials of Coffee County. I don't know anything about this family (other than they always come up in my Alabama-based Rials searches). I see that in one census Archibald Jr. said he was born in South Carolina, but information from pages such as
http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/bladen/bios/familyhi190bs.t... seems to point to North Carolina origins for these Rials.
Of course, the connection could easily be further back - up to five or so generations before Archibald's and Nancy's husband's time. No one seems to have the tree back that far for either branch.
Unfortunately, Ancestry's hasn't yet made raw data available, so I can't look at the shared segment between me and my match and begin to try to narrow down my DNA connection to this other Rials descendant. It could be on the Rials line, or it could be somewhere else entirely.
So, unless others have found something in their own tests (please tell!), any connection between these two Alabama Rials families is apparently unknown.
If you're a Rials descendant and you've taken the Ancestry test, could you please keep an eye out for my name in your matches? Not everyone bothers to look at distant matches, which is where you'd probably find me. (Hopefully we'll get a search engine soon.)
Also, if any (not just Alabama!) Rials descendants have taken tests elsewhere and want to compare genomes, I'm under this name on 23andMe, my kit number is M201056 on GEDMatch, and my FTDNA transfer should be done next month (where I'll be under this name as well).
I've only been doing genetic genealogy for about five months now, but I've been pretty amazed by the possibilities. Here's hoping we can get some of our Rials connections sorted out! :)