Gilliam Family Genealogy

Gilliam In-Laws: The Hildreths, Part 2 In the immediately preceding blog post, we reviewed the first three generations of Hildreth ancestors (and the families they married into) in North America. After short stays in Massachusetts and Connecticut, three generations of Hildreth ancestors helped settle the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, in and surrounding the town of Southampton. We pick up the Hildreths’ story in this post with the next Hildreth in our direct line, Joseph. My generation’s 5th great-grandfather, Joseph Hildreth (1720-1792), was the eldest son of John Hildreth and Phebe Squire. He was born in Orange County, New York in about 1720, shortly after his parents moved there from Southampton. Located on the west bank of the Hudson River, Orange County was on the edge of the frontier. In his adulthood in the years leading up to the Revolution, Joseph became a prominent citizen in Orange County. He was named to some local colonial commissions and was a signee to a ple...

  Gilliam In-Laws: The Hildreths, Part 1 The American history of the Hildreth family is as deep and broad as that of the Gilliam family. In the next series of posts, I will trace the Hildreths from their emigration from Britain to the American colonies through their migration across the continent. Hildreths tamed the frontiers, pioneered new territories, fought in our nation’s wars and suffered more than their fair share of tragedies along the way.   The surname Hildreth is thought to be a variant of Eldridge, a name of Anglo-Saxon origin. It is one of the names of the original ethnic groups of Britain predating the Norman conquest led by William the Conqueror (attentive readers will recall that the surname Gilliam is derived from William and was adopted by many early English in honor of William the Conqueror). In its earliest incarnation, prior to the Norman conquest, the spelling of the name Hildreth/Eldridge was either “Aelfric”, “Aethelric” or “Aethelred”. Most...

Picking up from the last two posts, we are going back to discuss the women married to the Gilliams in our direct line and their families.  We started with the women who married John Gilliam (1613-1673), his son Hinchea Gilliam (1663-1734), his grandson John Gilliam (1696-1738) and his great-grandson Hinchea Gilliam (1718-1794). This post will discuss the family tree of Mary Clanton ( my generation's fifth great-grandmother ), who married John Gilliam (1745-1828). This John Gilliam was  my generation's fifth great-grandfather and the great-great grandson of the original John Gilliam who immigrated to North America. Like the Gilliams in between, this John Gilliam was born in the Virginia Colony, but he would be the first to begin the migration south and west. The family lines in the Virginia Colony by this time had five or six generations to interconnect and make their mark. Let's see what we know about this "great" grandmother and her family's tree. Mar...

We are circling back to discuss the women married to the Gilliams in our direct line and their families.  We started with the women who married John Gilliam (1613-1673), and his son Hinchea Gilliam (1663-1734). In this post, we pick up with his grandson John Gilliam (1696-1738) ( my generation's seventh great-grandfather ), and his great-grandson Hinchea Gilliam (1718-1794) ( my generation's sixth great-grandfather ), both of whom stayed in the James River Basin of Virginia. The families in the Virginia Colony by this time had four or five generations to get interconnected. In some cases, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "the family tree did not fork". Buckle up and let's see what we know about these "great" grandmothers and their families. Hinchea and Fortune Gilliam's son John (1696-1738) is the next Gilliam in our line. Unfortunately, we do not have much to go on regarding his wife, Sarah. One of the best sources regarding the early Gilliam line ...

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 ...