Numbers of people trace their Dillard lineage to a man living about Revolutionary War times. The frustration begins when these researchers look for the father of a particular James, John, George, Thomas, Nicholas, Edward, or another Dillard of that era. Several books have brief sketches of Dillard ancestry. Invariably they name James Stephen Dillard as second (or first) of the Dillard surname in Virginia. Yet there is no Virginia record of a James Stephen Dillard. So the logical question, then, is: Was James Stephen Dillard, of Virginia, a myth -- or was he a real person?
The usual order of research is to look first in printed material and then try to verify it by actual records. Printed sketches in available books begin
In more than sixty photostatic copies of printed Dillard sketches or pedigrees, those which trace a Dillard line back to the 1600's have the same first three generations, none documented, but often in the same words as the 1902 clipping: George Dillard, his son James Stephen Dillard (born in 1658), his son James (or James Stephen, Jr.). Credit is occasionally given to Hill's Henry County, which is itself undocumented and therefore not an adequate source.
Several records of George Dillard appear in Nugent's Cavaliers and Pioneers, from the first one when he was a headright of Capt. Moore Fantleroy on 22 May 1650 (p. 195), through his acquisition of land in New Kent County, which fell into King and Queen County when it was created in 1691. We learn that he had a wife when the two sold 76 acres of New Kent County land in 1679. The 1704 Quit Rent Rolls, published in several books, are really a census of Virginia landowners. Every landowner had to pay the King an annual quit rent of one shilling per fifty acres. Names included were Nicho. and Edwd. Dillard and Thomas and Geo. Dillard in King and Queen County and William Dolerd in New Kent County. (Isle of Wight County records show that Henry Dullard was Henry Bullard.) Dillard/Dolerd names were found only in adjoining counties of King and Queen and New Kent. Yet none of the Dillard landowners except George are in genealogies published before 1960. When a researcher attempts to verify the existence of James Stephen Dillard and his son James -- since printed statements are not necessarily true --the trouble begins. No James Stephen Dillard is in any early Virginia record in any county. No James Dillard appears until 1758 -- a hundred years after James Stephen's supposed birth -- when a James Dillard patented 269 acres, part in New Kent and part in James City County, Virginia; hence the frustration of Dillard researchers.
Because no county records exist for New Kent or King and Queen County until 1865, Church of England records are vital. Parish registers and vestry books are really official records, since vestries of the various parishes had certain civil duties. From 1735 the same names -- George, Thomas, and Nicholas Dillard -- appear in King and Queen County; and Edward, from 1733 in adjoining Middlesex County. There is no James Stephen Dillard. There is no James Dillard.
So is James Stephen Dillard a myth? The successful researcher must go beyond the obvious. Spelling was not standardized, and the handwriting of the 1600's and 1700's was different from today's. Names were written as they sounded to the record keeper. St. Peter's Parish Register, New Kent County, lists three families. William Dollard with wife Sarah had sons William in 1704 (father of Thomas in 1736) and Francis in 1709, the year William died; and James Dollard, with no wife named, had Elizabeth in 170_ and James in 171_. John and Susannah Dollard had James (1736), Edward (1739), Lucy (1754), and Susann (1757). James (1758), Edward and Thomas (1782) Dillard -- not Dollard -- appear in New Kent records. The key to the mystery is in changed handwriting. In the 1600's and 1700's the letter e was often written like an o with a loop at the top. Thus William, James, and John Dollard were meant to have the surname Dellard. Often short e is pronounced like short i and Dillard is often pronounced in such ways that it could be spelled with any first vowel.
On 6 September 1978 at the Virginia State Library, to make sure of the appearance of the letter transcribed as an o, I had the photostatic copy of the parish register and vestry book brought from the stacks. I was disappointed to see that the o was definitely an o. But David Mossom, rector from 1727 past
When people tell remembered things about ancestors, they often remember names and events but forget dates. The strong tradition of a James, son of George Dillard, with son James seems a logical memory, especially since the Dollard/Dellard men -- James with son James -- existed and are in official records.
But James Stephen Dillard? Augusta B. Fothergill, an authority on Virginia records, wrote Terry Moorman Dillard that during the supposed James Stephen's lifetime, said to be from 1658, double forenames were not used. (Katherine Reynolds, The Dillard Family, p. 83.) Anyone can verify this in Virginia records of that time. Not even the governor, Sir William Berkeley, or the greatest landowners used double given names. This, then, seems to be the answer: There was no James Stephen Dillard, but there was a James Dillard of record, who very well could have been George Dillard's son. This James Dillard had a son, James, also of record, who probably was the ancestor of some later Dillards, but he was not the progenitor of all later Dillards, as a number of printed genealogies imply. Dillards with other given names also had children.