Johnston & Reid - my closest Y-DNA cousins

NOTES FOR WILLIS JOHNSTON/Elizabeth Alston: There are several examples of Willis Johnstons scattered across the Abraham Johnston branch of the Johnson/Johnston family. Abraham Johnston had a son named Willis Johnson who was born around 1784. Sterling Johnston (Abraham Johnston's son) had a son named William Willis Johnston born in Halifax Co. NC 1794-1835. Willis appears in the Halifax Co. census of 1820 on a separate line apart from Sterling Johnston. In the 1860 census for Warren Co. just above the household reference for Bill Reid's 2x GGF JAB Reid in the neighboring house is a Willis Johnson. This Willis Johnson is the son of John Pittman Johnson who is the son of Sterling Johnston. Three consecutive generations used the namesake, Willis Johnston. And not to belabor the point, Wade Hampton Johnston (yet another son of Sterling Johnston) had a son named Willis Johnston. This Willis was born around 1847 in Halifax. Co. As a side note Bill Reid's great-great-great grandfather's name is Eaton Willis Read.

Elizabeth Alston's father: Col. Henry Alston of Halifax Co., NC. B: 1780 Warren Co. NC. D: 1861 Lumpkin Co. GA. Census data shows he was in Halifax Co., NC, 1790-1830. Eliza is present in the data 1810 and thereafter. Sometime between 1830-1840, Henry and his family moved from Halifax Co. NC to Union Co. GA (possibly later became Lumpkin Co. GA). In the 1850 Census, one sees in Henry Alston's household the following: Henry (70), Willis (33), Henry (30), Matthew (28), Charles B (26). He's possibly widowed at this point but must have remarried because he mentioned his then current wife repeatedly in his Will. In the very next household on the census is Elizabeth Alston, age 40, and Willis Alston, Age 18. Bill Reid believes this to be Willis Johnston, Alan's great-great-great grandfather with his date of birth around 1831/2 in Warren Co. NC (census indicates both were born in NC). Also refer to Bill Reid's presentation of evidence he gathered supporting the possible Reid/Johns(t)on Warren Co., North Carolina, connection, using Y-DNA, correspondence, websites, census and land documentation to support they hypothesis. If this connection is accurate, it opens the door into the when and where for the Reids and those Johns(t)ons with known roots in the counties of Warren and Halifax.