Gilliam Family Genealogy

When he was interviewed in the 1990 documentary The Civil War , historian Shelby Foote said this about the war: Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us.  The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement in European wars, beginning with the First World War, did what it did. But the Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the mid-nineteenth century.  It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads. The war was also “a hell of a crossroads” for the descendants of Hinchea Gilliam (1775-1858) and provides some insight into our ancestors' character. (Hinchea died before the War's start in 1861, but as the first common ancestor of the s...

In this post we will explore the Gilliams in our direct line and their migration from Tennessee to Arkansas.  Hinchea Gilliam (1775-1858) arrived in Marion County, Tennessee in 1832 with most of his family joining him. Hinchea's tenth child (and eighth son) Hardy Gilliam would move on to Arkansas as would several of Hardy's siblings and cousins. According to the oral family history that was compiled and typed by Margie Gilliam Callahan, Hardy Gilliam (1818-1879) moved his family to Arkansas in 1852. There are several clues available that confirm her research.  The earliest direct record we have of Hardy's move to Arkansas is found in US Department of the Interior documents that are cataloged as part of the First Landowner's Project ( historygeo.com ). Those records show that on November 15, 1854, Hardy became the original owner of two 40 acre parcels of property in what was then Crooked Creek Township, Carroll County Arkansas. Copies of those records are shown...

After arriving in the New World, six generations of Gilliams would settle in the Virginia Colony before migrating south and west to Tennessee. Two generations later, the Gilliams in our direct line would migrate farther south and west to Arkansas. Before we explore the family’s move to Arkansas, we should pause to reflect on the interesting given name of three of the patriarchs of the original six generations of Gilliams in our direct line: “Hinchea" Gilliam.  If you look at an extended family tree, there are more than a dozen Hinchea Gilliams over those six generations. The sheer number of Hincheas certainly makes research confusing. (One shorthand way of remembering the first six generations in our direct line is that the line alternated between the names “John” and “Hinchea”: John-Hinchea-John-Hinchea-John-Hinchea). To say the least, the given name “Hinchea” is unusual. Hinchea seems to be the most accepted spelling of the name, but a review of census records and other ...

Special thanks to Ida Smith and the Marion County Tennessee History & Genealogy website, for their research assistance in completing this post. Hinchea Gilliam (1775-1858) was born in Sussex County, Virginia in 1775, one of the sixth generation of Gilliams in North America, and the sixth of John Gilliam’s (1745-1825) nine children. He would be the last in our line of our direct ancestors to be born in Virginia.  As discussed in the previous blog post, Next Stop: Tennessee , Hinchea’s father, John, moved from the James River Basin in Virginia about the time he obtained his land grant in Hawkins County, Tennessee in 1791. As Hinchea would have been approximately 16 years old at the time, he likely moved to Hawkins County with his father. At the time of the move, Hawkins County would have been considered to be the frontier west of the State of North Carolina that would become a part of  the State of Tennessee in 1796. Further details about the location of the family pr...

After four generations in Virginia, John Gilliam (1745-1825) begins the family migration south and west to Tennessee . Like the three generations of Gilliams before him, John was born in the James River Basin of Colonial Virginia. The specific location of his  1745  birth was Albemarle Parish, a part of Surry County. In 1754, Surry County was subdivided, and Albemarle Parish became part of adjacent Sussex County. This explains why some genealogists list John’s birthplace as Surry County, some as Sussex County. John’s first eight children (in order, John Jr., Avery, Nancy, Temperance, Frances, Hinchea, Mary (“Polly”) and Thomas) all appear to have been born in Albemarle Parish, Sussex County. The youngest of the children born in Sussex County, Thomas, was born in 1780, our best proof that John remained in Sussex County through 1780.  John obtained a 250-acre land grant from the state of North Carolina in Hawkins County in 1791. It is possible he left Virginia...