GAHUNTER on Family Tree Circles

Hello all,

My name is Leon Brown and I'm brand new to this group, and to genealogy in general.

I got here at the suggestion of my daughter-in-law as she and I both have hit a dead end in researching my Mother's maiden name, Sara Williams. Her dad was Horace Rudolph Williams of Gwinnett County, GA, and his dad was Virgil Rufus Williams, also of Gwinnett County, GA, born in 1861. His dad was William Pittman Williams who was born in Oglethorpe County Georgia in 1814, and fathered 18 children.

Here's where it gets sticky. I've found several references to his dad being one William Williams, born in Mecklenburg County, NC circa 1780, and dying while serving in the U.S. Army during the war of 1812 in Chatham, County, GA (Savannah), on January 1, 1815. But that's it! There is nothing that I can find anywhere about his parentage. Mecklenburg County does not have birth records from that period in time.

Our family has a huge family reunion in Gwinnett County, GA every year for the descendants of William Pittman Williams (remember, this is my great, great grandfather who had 18 children). At that event, I found a program from the 1919 reunion that claimed that William Pittman Williams was the grandson of Col. James Henderson Williams, who was killed at the battle of Kings Mountain in 1781.

Problem is, James Henderson Williams had no son named William Williams, and his lineage is well researched and established all the way back the when the first Williams arrived in Virgiana from Wales in the 1650s.

So here I am, smashed up against a brick wall that I have not been able to breech for two years. I figure that with William Pittman Williams having 18 kids, his descendants must number in the thousands by now. Surely somebody among those thousands who is much smarter than me, has done a genealogy that bridges the gap.

Any suggestions?