I was doing some “Googleing” one day and came across a question on a web site about my Great Grandfather James Thomas Guilliam. I had the information that the person was looking for and was able to get some information that I did not know. My Dad had told me that his Grandma, (Margaret Ann Pate) had received a pension from the “Guverment” from Grandpa’s service in the Civil War. He had heard the story that his grandpa stole horses for the Confederacy, which turned out to be not entirely correct. In fact, the truth is even more fascinating, in that Great Grandpa James was a sharpshooter to be kind, or a sniper to be less kind. His name is listed in a web page about the “Orphan Brigade” or Company I of the 4^th Kentucky Infantry. Using British made Kerr rifles, sharpshooters were accurate up to a 1000 yards, that’s over a half a mile. The Brigade was so deadly that soldiers caught carrying the Kerr Rifle were executed when captured. Note in the picture that old James was missing his right arm. All accounts were that he was wounded at the battle of Rasaca, Georgia. By the time he was wounded the Brigade had been broken up and rolled into the regular infantry, although some were put in the calvary, whcih may have let to the horsethief legend. That is when a lot of them were killed or wounded. This got me looking further into family history and I found that the Guilliams have been in America since the early 1600’s. Some married Native Americans, and lived mostly in Virginia. The earliest record of the Guilliam name, (GWILLIAM) comes from Wales in the early 1500’s and is Celtic. The oldest record I have found in our direct family line is William, Duke of Guillame, in 1530. But word has it the name and lineage goes back to William the Conqueror, so would be Gaelic. William the Conqueror was from Normandy and his French name was Guilliame de Normandie (William of Normandie) where he was the Duke of Normandy. He invaded England in 1066 and became the first King of England (the Norman Conquest). There are also some Guilliame of reknown in the Catholic Church, one that I know of was a Cathedral builder in Northern France. Unfortunately one of the rotundas in the new cathedral collapsed, killing poor Guilliame, but the church and the community were so grateful for his work and mastery that the village that housed his latest cathedral was named after him in Bois-Guilliame, France just outside of Rouen, and is known as Guilliame Cathedral. Rouen is very close to where William the Conqueror was from so there was probably some relation. I am still trying to find out which side of the revolutionary war that my ancestors fought on. As soon as I find that out, it will be posted here.