Why some questions remain open
Open Research Questions
A responsible archive does not fill every silence. When surviving records cannot answer a question, BEFORE TILL leaves the uncertainty visible and continues searching.
Under active research
The questions that shape the work
- Open
Who were Hilliard's parents?
- What we know
- Hilliard appears in Taliaferro estate records as property, not as a son or daughter of a named parent. Estate inventories of this period rarely record parentage for enslaved people.
- What we need
- Bills of sale, plantation birth or increase lists, Freedmen's Bureau labor contracts naming kin, or a post-emancipation record in which Hilliard states a father's or mother's name.
- Open
Who purchased Hilliard in the 1856 sale recorded in the Taliaferro estate settlement?
- What we know
- An 1856 transaction removed Hilliard from the estate holdings. The estate accounting records the disposal; it does not record the purchaser in the material examined so far.
- What we need
- The estate's sale account book, county deed or chattel records for 1856, and probate settlement papers filed after the sale.
- Active Research
Can Chicot County, Arkansas records document Hilliard's movement, sale, residence or transfer after the 1855 Taliaferro estate division?
- What we know
- Records place Hilliard in Mississippi before and after the war. An Arkansas movement is suggested by an associated household, not by a record naming Hilliard there.
- What we need
- An Arkansas census, tax, or Freedmen's Bureau record naming Hilliard or a member of his household.
- Open
Who were Bettie's parents?
- What we know
- No record in this archive names Bettie's mother or father. She enters the documentary record under her own name only after emancipation.
- What we need
- Freedmen's Bureau marriage or labor records naming her parents, a death certificate for any of her children, or an estate inventory that groups her with a named woman.
- Open
Why was Bettie known as "Alexander"?
- What we know
- Bettie carries the surname Alexander in some records and Taliaferro or Tolliver in others. The archive records the variation without resolving it.
- What we need
- A record in which Bettie or a child states the origin of the name — a marriage return, a pension file, or a church register entry.
- Open
Where was the Smith homestead?
- What we know
- Census enumerations place the household in specific Mississippi counties across several decades, and neighbors recur from one enumeration to the next.
- What we need
- A deed, plat, tax roll entry, or land patent tying the household to a described parcel.
- Open
Can the family's connection to Bishop C. H. Mason be corroborated?
- What we know
- The connection to the Bishop C. H. Mason family is carried in family memory and recorded here as Family Tradition.
- What we need
- Church of God in Christ records, congregational registers, or a contemporaneous document placing the families in the same congregation or household.
- Active Research
Who were all of John and Laura Smith's children?
- What we know
- Several children are documented by name in census households. The enumerated household size is larger than the named children in more than one year.
- What we need
- The 1900 and 1910 enumerations read line by line, death certificates naming John or Laura as parent, and church or burial records for the Delta counties.
Also open
Further unresolved questions
Active Research
Was “Qualls Tolliver” a Quarles Taliaferro?
Is the “Qualls Tolliver” of Lucretia Alexander's narrative an oral rendering of Quarles Taliaferro, and if so, which one?
Open the fileOpen
Choctaw ancestry in Bettie's line
Does the ancestry of Bettie Alexander Taliaferro contain a Choctaw ancestor, or an ancestor from a Choctaw community?
Open the fileOpen
Shawnee ancestry in Hilliard's line
Does the ancestry of Hilliard Taliaferro contain a Shawnee ancestor, or an ancestor connected with a Shawnee community?
Open the fileActive Research
Who was Washington of Washington County?
Who was the free Indian man named Washington whom Lucretia Alexander identified as Agnes Tolliver's father, and can Washington County, Virginia records connect Washington and Agnes to the Taliaferro/Tolliver family before the migration to Mississippi?
Open the fileOpen
Were Agnes and Hilliard related?
Can a documentary trail establish whether Agnes and Hilliard were biological relatives, or members of the same extended enslaved family and community network?
Open the fileOpen
Is the Hillyard of the 1831 Orange County estate our Hilliard?
Does the boy recorded as Hillyard in Richard H. Taliaferro's 1831 Virginia appraisement become the Hilliard held in the William Q. Taliaferro estate in Mississippi?
Open the fileOpen
Who were the parents of Hilliard Jr. and Leon M.?
The 1880 census enters Hilliard Jr., 8, and Leon M., 6, as grandsons in the household of Hilliard and Bettie Taliaferro. Which of their children was the parent?
Open the fileActive Research
When did George Smith leave Mississippi?
What records bracket George Smith's departure from Copiah County, Mississippi and his arrival in Illinois?
Open the fileOpen
Who Were the Other Enslaved People in Hilliard's Records?
Who else appears in the Taliaferro estate and related records alongside Hilliard, and can any of them be shown to be his kin?
Open the fileActive Research
Two women named Alma Smith
How do the records separate Alma Smith Carthan from Alma Smith Spearman?
Open the fileOpen
Who was George Smith's wife?
What marriage, census, obituary or death record names George Smith's spouse?
Open the fileOpen
Taliaferro Plantation Identity
What exactly was the "Taliaferro Plantation" associated with Hilliard's enslavers?
Open the fileOpen
Is Thomas Taliaferro Hilliard's Son?
A secondary account reportedly states that a Thomas Taliaferro named his father as Hilliard Taliaferro. Is that Hilliard the Hilliard of this archive?
Open the fileOpen
Was Peggy Hinz Hilliard's Sister?
Could Peggy Hinz, recorded in the 1870 household context, have been Hilliard's sister?
Open the fileOpen
Who Was C. A. Talliferro?
Who was the C. A. Talliferro recorded with Hilliard at Spencers Mill in 1884?
Open the fileOpen
Where Is Hilliard Buried?
Can Hilliard's death date and burial place be documented?
Open the fileActive Research
The Vicksburg College Question
Can the institution remembered as "Vicksburg College" be historically established, and can Laura Tolliver's attendance be documented?
Open the fileActive Research
The Five-Year Separation
Can the family story of Hilliard and Bettie's forced separation and reunion be independently documented?
Open the file
Send a lead