The Official Site for Family Members Everywhere
| gililland.net | Gililland
Gilliland Gillilland Gilleland The Official Site for Family Members Everywhere |
|
| We Don't Care How You Spell It. You're Family Here. | |
|
Is it GILILLAND, GILLILAND, GILLILLAND, GILLALAND, or GILLELAND? If you don't know, you are not alone. It's the Gililland Name Game, and you can play, too! What follows is a compilation of stories and communications received over several years, some told for almost a century. None of these stories are documented well enough to swear by, so don't try. Just accept them as the interesting tales they are. Compilation by Michael L. Gililland, April, 2002.
John Gilliland (1765-1849) had three sons who migrated to Missouri in the early 1800's; John Richardson, Mathias R., and Robert. All three spelled the name GILILLAND upon ariving in Missouri. While there are some variations, the great majority of written records reflect the GILILLAND spelling. In the St. Louis area of Missouri, there exist today many descendants of these brothers where the name is spelled GILILLAND, wihout exception.
When the Missouri spelling was first discovered, it was assumed the spelling changed because of some difficulty with reading and writing. The majority of the population could not read or write in the early 1800's. It would not have been suprising to find John, Mathias, and Robert could not read or write. That would leave the spelling of the name to the discretion of whatever notary might be recording the name for whatever purpose. However, there are too many records for this to make sense. There are numerous property records, tax records, marriage records, grave markers and probate records, recorded by too many different notaries for this spelling to have been determined by serendipity. The brothers must have know how to read and write, and they must have purposely chosen the GILILLAND spelling.
The question is, why? As it turns out, John, Mathias, and Robert might not have been the first to use the GILILLAND spelling. Recent research has uncovered a pre-Missouri migration document signed by 'John Gililland.' This is believed to be the our John (1765 - 1849), the father of John R., Mathias R., and Robert.
As further evidence of earlier use of the GILILLAND spelling, there is the story of Elizabeth. A sister of John, Mathias, and Robert, she came to western Illinois in the early 1800's, started a family, and was then widowed. She retook her maiden name and it is recorded in the 1850 census, as well as Greene County Illinois property records as 'Elizabeth GILILLAND.'
There is other circumstantial evidence of pre-Missouri use of the GILILLAND spelling. On their way from South Carolina to Missouri, John's (1765 - 1849) family lived for a time in Kentucky, southeast of what is now Louisville. In the central area of Kentucky, there are modern families using the spelling GILILLAND who do NOT trace their ancestry back to Missouri. These could well be descendants of the family as it moved across the country. And so the search goes on.
Loren A. Gililland, in his book "A Genealogy of the Gililland, Gilliland, Hewit, Holloway and the Day Families", 1998, offers the following account regarding John Sanford Gililland.
John Sanford was born in Missouri and was 8 years old when the family moved to Collin County, Texas. In 1861, at age 16, John S. joined the 6th Texas Cavalry, but was sent back home when it was discovered he was 16 - too young. In 1862 John S. changed the spelling of his last name to "Gililland" (he was still too young) and joined Throckmorton's Second Partisan Rangers, commanded by Col. Chisum.
It's a romantic notion, changing the name in order to gain admission into the military. However, property, marriage, and probate records show that John Sanford's father, his grandfather, and all his uncles, spelled the name GILILLAND before John Sanford was born.
The romantic Civil War epic, above, was later used by John Sanford's son, Robert Roy (far right in the photo at left), as an excuse to change the spelling 'back' to GILLILAND. Robert Roy then convinced three of his brothers, James, John Porter, and Walter W., to change their name as well. Thus, around 1915 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas, there came to be one family with two spellings. The difference exists today, but there's is now a modern twist to the story.
The latest story says that Robert Roy was a businessman who wished to be associated with another local, and more successful, businessman named "GILLILAND." By changing his name, Robert Roy could claim relationship and presumably gain business favor in the area. Of course, the truth or falsity of this will never be proved, but it is a fact that Robert Roy and his brothers James, Porter, and Walter, changed their name from Gililland to Gilliland. Looking back, it may well be that Robert Roy invented the Civil War story, and that he was already related to the GILLILAND side of the family without knowing it.
As a result of Robert Roy's efforts, all the descendant males of John Sanford Gililland now spell the name GILLILAND, with the exception of Almer Lee who refused to change the spelling. Almer Lee (second from right in the photo above) was my great-grandfather.
If all this name changing is not confusing enough, there's more. The migration of the original Gilliland families (there were several) out of North and South Carolina took many directions. Some went to Ohio, some to Alabama, and of course some to Missouri. The Alabama branch is fairly well documented as they settled into that state. But then a branch of that family moved to west Texas. By now there were multiple branches of the same original GILLILAND family in Texas, and they were spelling the name every which way. And, you guessed it, for some unknown reason, the Alabama/West Texas family changed their spelling to GILILLAND.
Now there is little doubt that all these GILILLAND, GILLILAND, and even GILLELAND families are of the same blood line. Which is which, and how the name came to be spelled as it is may never be settled. It's best we don't try, however, because of another well known GILILLAND/GILLILAND clan trait - we can't seem to agree on anything, even the spelling of our name.