This is all very interesting, if true John P seemed like quite the "interesting" person... really wish families passed down more info like this.

I have yet to find a marriage record for John and Amanda... though I did find the 1860 census record for John and Amanda in Tennessee (can't find an 1870 one though oddly).

John P son of Amanda is listed as being born in 1857 in the 1880 census:
http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1880usfedcen&a...
and 1856 in the 1860 census:
http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1860usfedcenan...

So though these census records could be wrong it definitely seems likely he was born around the right time.

"Think there's any way to get absolute confirmation that the John who married Amanda Champion is the same as the one who married Virginia Cooper or would you say the evidence we found is enough to consider reliable?"

If we found a male descendant of the John P son of Amanda and get them to do a Y DNA test we could compare their Y DNA results to my uncles and if they match then it should mostly confirm it (barring a cousin who just happened to be John P too).

Interesting to hear you are also descended from Elias :) I'm guessing due to your name your a male Bryant descendant too?

I descend through Elias' son John Gilbert Bryant. I've had basically no Bryant family history passed down, so been trying to get all I can.