What do the names "DeLois" and "Chavis" mean?

Question:

What do the names "DeLois" and "Chavis" mean?

I am having a hard time looking up the origins of my name online, and I really don't have the money to do a thorough search to find my answers. Someone please help me!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Delois meaning and origin is currently unknown other than its a popular female first name and a common surname.

Chavis

The Chavis surname was most common in southeastern Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina with the majority claiming either Native American and White and/or African-American ancestry, sometimes both. Our line maintains their identity as Native American and/or White (Welsh, German, Swiss). Elsewhere, groups like ours would probably be considered Metis. The surname appears on lists of Free African Americans, Melungeons, and tri-racial isolates. Any one of these associations draws controversy and many heated discussions on mailing lists. These groups developed from the early years of Jamestown and the Virginia/Carolina colonies when both Europeans and Africans served as indentured servants rather than chattel slaves, and many settlers took Indian wives or lived among Indian communities, especially traders. Indentured servants fulfilled their terms of service, purchased their freedom or were freed by their owners, and developed plantations or farms of their own. Legal restrictions on this community began as early as 1670.

By 1750, many who could be labeled free black, mulatto, Indian or mixed often lived in fear of illegal abduction as chattel slavery became the norm. Several sites state that on the 1790 census, anyone in the United States who could be labeled anything other than white fell into one category -- free persons of color. For this reason, and because it is believed families used whichever racial label provided the most freedom, race categories on legal documents and census are often disputed.

Whether predominately African, Native and/or White, many of these families came to live together in small isolated communities often moving deeper into the mountains or swamps. Fears were renewed with the forced Indian removals of the early 1800's, and there are stories of some of these communities harboring fugitives from the Trail of Tears . In these years, the growing population of free African-Americans or those of mixed race in Virginia and North Carolina was also seen as a threat. These families faced similar obstacles, but each family's story of survival is unique.

Our family has been living along the Edisto River since the 1700's and were given land grants following the Revolutionary War. Living in the swamps along the Edisto -- such as Four Hole Swamp , our family members served as riflemen under Gen. Francis Marion, Col. William Thompson, and Capt. John Allston. After the war, they moved to land grants along the North fork of the Edisto in Orangeburg Co. SC.

In Free African-Americans of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware , Paul Heinigg has documented Chavis moving out of Virginia into Granville Co. NC and on to Drowning Creek, now the Lumber River, in Robeson Co. NC. He traces the Chavis surname to Surry Co. Virginia resident, Thomas Chevers , Cheevers or Chivers of Monktown Castle, Co. Dublin, Ireland, who arrived in 1654. Other researchers disagree. The Chevers supported the crown against Cromwell, and in the same year Thomas emigrated, his brother, Walter Chevers, was banished to Connaught. A Norman line, Chevers is derived from the French chevre -- goat, and has also been associated with Chivas or Schivas , a Scots name from the barony in Aberdeenshire, Scotland though that link is disputed.

On Chavis message boards, some say Chavis is derived from Chavin or Chevin , the surname of a Huguenot refugee. Another similar sounding name is that of Huguenot refugee, Jean Chevas , who arrived at Jamestown, Virginia in 1700. At this time in France, Scots, some of Norman ancestry, were among French Protestants while others served in the army or worked in French ports as traders -- so am uncertain about origins. Though primarily French, several nationalities were found among the Huguenot. The Mary Ann , arrived in the summer of 1700, and the Huguenot colonists settled not at Jamestown, but at Manakin Town (east of Richmond). The Peter and Anthony, the Nassau, and another ship (name unknown) arrived later. Chevas ("Tumar and his wife, Chevas and 2 children - 5") is listed in Brock's, Documents Relating to the Huguenot Emigration to Virginia as being in the fourth ship (though he is on the Mary Ann list) and settling between the two creeks. No further information for Chavin or Chevas.

The largest percentage of Native Americans with the Chavis or Chavous surname are among the Lumbee of Robeson Co. NC and the Pee Dee originally from the Florence and Marion Co. SC area, now concentrated in small pockets throughout South Carolina. Both groups also moved into Georgia. The Lumbee believe they are descended from the Roanoke colonists and the early tribes in the area. Some of their surnames are the same, and they took the name Croatan for many years. They were once labelled Cherokee. The Pee Dee share some common surnames with the Lumbee : Bear/Behr, Berry, Bird, Braveboy/Brayboy, Chavis, Jackson, Jones, Locklear, Oxendine, Scott, Sweet/Sweatt and others. There are more German-Swiss names among the family in Orangeburg Co. SC: Harmon, Huffman, Yawn/Yonne.

The Pee Dee were a smaller group associated with the Catawba confederacy, but researchers now believe they belonged to the Muskogean families like the Creek, rather than the Siouan. When they were placed on reserve, they were placed with the Notchee (Natchez), another Muskogean tribe. Many Pee Dee descendants had been told they were Indian, usually Cherokee. Some also have Creek ancestry. Several Pee Dee groups in South Carolina are applying for federal recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Current chiefs of the Pee Dee are from the Locklear, Chavis and Ott lines.

MELUNGEON DISCUSSIONS
The Chavis surname is included on Melungeon surname lists. N. Brent Kennedy wrote The Melungeons , in 1994 drawing attention to the origins of mixed race groups in southern Appalachia. He believes the common claim of Portyghee (Portugese) ancestry by many considered Melungeon was very possibly correct. What originally piqued Kennedy's interest in a Portugese connection to the Melungeons was contracting a disease common to those of Portugese or Mediterranean origin, though his heritage was believed to be Scots and German. There are many stories of Portugese or Portyghee heritage quoted (and disputed) in early American legal documents. Kennedy believes these groups have Portugese and Turkish (peoples within Portugese dominions or the Ottoman Empire) noting a large percentage of Spanish and Portugese sailors were Turks. The Ottoman Empire covered a lot of territory and those pressed into service might be Armenians, Kurds, Conversos/Marranos or North African. It has been said the Spanish Inquisition sent 500,000 Muslim and Jewish peoples fleeing throughout the Mediterranean. Blood tests have indicated those tested in the Wythe Co., Virginia area share a relationship to Mediterranean peoples.

Kennedy notes that in 1586, Francis Drake brought sailors/galley-slaves taken from a Spanish ship in the Caribbean and left them on Roanoke Island. They were not there when he returned, disappearing much like the Roanoke colonists (1585). During this time period 1560-1580, de Allyon, Joao Pardo and others established forts and missions in the Carolinas and Virginia; i.e. the Santa Elena colony (Beaufort Co.),the fort at Winyah Bay, the Spanish missions mentioned in The Patriot. It is believed some soldiers, colonists, sailors or slaves, perhaps with children from Indian associations, remained behind when the Spanish abandoned these settlements. Most often groups like this are absorbed into a larger group. Would surnames continue? Perhaps some would continue westward attempting to find another route home? It has been suggested or it is known a Chaves (Portugese surname and town near border with Galicia) was among Pardo's men.

Since Chavis and other associated surnames appear in settlements upriver from Winyah Bay in North and South Carolina it lends some credence to a Pardo or Spanish connection. Helen Chavis Othow, in her book on the African-American Presbyterian minister and teacher, John Chavis, gives the Spanish slave/Indian origin. On the other hand, as mentioned before Paul Heinigg's research connects the Chavis with descendants of Thomas Chevers, a Norman-Irish immigrant, moving onto Drowning Creek (Lumber River) from Granville Co., North Carolina. Then there are the Huguenot with similar sounding surnames.

MELUNGEON MEANS WHAT?
Some believe Melungeon is from the French, melange , meaning a mixture, but this is disputed. There are Muslim sites which state Melungeon could be derived from mujhadeen as well as illustrating possible connections to other southern Native American names. Another source is believed to be the Turkish or Arabic, Melun-can , meaning "cursed soul." The author says it was in common usage during the 16th century among Ottoman Turks, Arabs and Muslim converts to Christianity. Some mention the stories told by southeastern tribes of people living among them who from their descriptions seemed to have either Muslim or Jewish traditions, and there are also stories of Welsh Indians in southern Appalachia (from Sevier's explorations, and the Prince Madoc legends) .

Others, like Tim Hashaw , believe Melungeon is a term taken from the homeland of the earliest African slaves brought to the Virginia colony. He quotes researchers who say Angolan slaves in Brazil described themselves as Malungu -- from the Kimbundu (and Kikongo) word for "watercraft" which came to mean anyone who traveled on the same ship together. One Brazilian researcher says the word transferred to Portugese as "melungo" meaning shipmate, and refer to the 1880 definition given by Macedo Soares which included other associations such as companion, comrade or relative. Hashaw says that Britain and America had no direct African slave trade at the time, but British and Dutch privateers often attacked Portugese slavers leaving the Angolan port of Luanda. He quotes Sluiter in an article for the William and Mary Quarterly, which showed that a Captain Jopes (Cornish sailing under Dutch marque) traded 20 or more African slaves to the Jamestown colony in 1619. Between 1618-1620, Portugal was attacking the Mbundu kingdom of Ndongo, the modern Malange district of Angola, and driving deep into the Kongo. During this campaign, it is believed 50,000 men, women and children were taken into slavery, including approximately 5000 Christian converts. Some would come to New Amsterdam (New York), and many would go to Spanish and Portugese colonies such as Brazil and Mexico.

SIMILAR SOUNDING WORDS & SURNAMES MOST PROBABLY IRRELEVANT BUT INTERESTING
Jewish sites say chavush is a Hebrew word meaning captive, prisoner or imprisoned , as demonstrated by this quote from a Jewish Mailing List (find chavush). It is used in the same context on other Jewish sites.

The surname Chavush, apparently not with the Hebrew meaning, appears on Turkish, Armenian, Hungarian and other sites: i.e, Chavush Shipping, Gevork/Gevorg Chavush, Nazaret Chavush, Indjili Chavush, Sinan Chavush, Ibrahim Chavush . In Turkey, there is a chavush.cjb.net and a www.sivashaber.com . (I think haber means word or news.)

At The Fall of Medieval Hungary... it defines chavush: 1. courier; 2. marshal; 3. ceremonial escort. Chavush was the name given the Turkish whistling arrow , and which is said to mean messenger. Whistling arrows were used to signal military movements and to send messages.