Gilliam Family Genealogy

So far in this blog, we have covered the Gilliam line from their first steps in the New World in 1635 and followed them as they migrated across the country. Those posts have taken us from the Virginia Colony to Tennessee, then to Arkansas and Texas and Oklahoma. Before we follow the next generation of Gilliams from Oklahoma to California, I want to go back and discuss the women married to the Gilliams in our direct line and their families. Some of those families are not as well documented as the Gilliam line, but I will try to provide whatever evidence we have of our "great" grandmothers. In this post we will start with the women who married John Gilliam (1613-1673) ( my generation's ninth great-grandfather ), and his son Hinchea Gilliam (1663-1734) ( my generation's eighth great-grandfather ), both of whom stayed in the James River Basin of Virginia. In a prior post "Why are there so many Hinchea Gilliams?"  we discussed Margery ( my generation...

NOTE: At this point in our family's genealogy, we are moving into the early Twentieth Century. Many of the lives of the family members discussed in this post overlapped the lives of family members who are still living. My research is focused on details that are available in the public record.  However, many of you will have clear memories of the family members discussed here and will have details that fill in the blanks in the public record. I'd love to hear from anyone who has any information that supports, contradicts or supplements the information I have found. Please feel free to comment to this (or any other post) or drop me an email at jhg@longgilliam.com. I'll share your information in the blog only if you provide me your permission to do so. Thanks! In the previous post, we explored Hardy and Jane Gilliam's 1877 move from Arkansas to Hill County, Texas with their surviving adult children. Their sons Thomas Jefferson Gilliam  (Note: I will refer to him as T...

In a previous post, we discussed Hardy and Jane (Nixon) Gilliam's move from Tennessee to Arkansas in 1852. We believe that in doing so, Hardy likely followed his siblings, Elizabeth Jane (Gilliam) Ferguson and Wiley Blount Gilliam and their families. Hardy's sons, Thomas Jefferson Gilliam and John Tillman Gilliam both fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and returned to Arkansas after Lee's surrender in 1865.  NOTE: For the rest of this blog post, I will refer to John Tillman Gilliam as "JT" and Thomas Jefferson Gilliam as "TJ". TJ  married Martha Fallen in 1869. In 1870 census, with daughter Sarah Jane, TJ and Martha are listed living in the home of William and Frances Pruitt, in Clark Township, Pope County Arkansas, near the town of Dover, Arkansas.  H ardy and Jane’s daughter Margaret died in Arkansas 1869.  Their son Alexander Hamilton Gilliam died in Arkansas in 1875. In  1877, at the age of 58 or 59,  Hardy Gilliam moved ...

The last post discussed the Gilliams who fought in the Civil War. Of course, the major cause of the war was the issue of slavery. This post sets out the documentary evidence of slave ownership by our ancestors. The documentary evidence proves that five of the first six generations in our direct line of ancestors in North America owned slaves. John Gilliam (1613-1673) As the slave trade came to Virginia in 1619, slavery would have pre-dated John's arrival in 1635, but grew much larger only after 1700. There is no known record of his will or other record of slave ownership, but it is likely he would have owned slaves as a large plantation operator. Hinchea Gilliam (1663-1734) In his will probated 11 Nov 1734, Hinchea named four slaves (Tom, Quamany, Jamey and Jack) whom he bequeathed to his wife Fortune, to be distributed among his children Thomas, Priscilla, Charles, Lydia and Hinchea. John Gilliam (1696-1738)        In his will dated 9 Aug 1738...

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...