John Neil Gillis home page.

Scottish immigrant's into North Carolina during 1700's. Moved into Alabama and Tennessee in early 1800's. Includes Patterson, Murchison (usually Merkerson), McFadden (in any of it's spellings), McIntosh. These families stayed together where ever they moved.Daniel Gillis in Wilmington, NC, in 1788, with two sisters; he married a Patterson and it's likely his sisters did, too. His first wife was Nancy Patterson (in NC) and second wife, a neice, Catherine in AL or TN.
His oldest son, Dugald P.(Patterson?)Gillis married Nancy Murchison, daughter of Kenneth, in Bedford County, TN, in 1816. Nancy died 9-1-1841 in Wayne County, TN. Dugald married her cousin Sarah McFadden (or McFadyen, McFadgen, McFaddian) 12-1-1841 in Hardin County, TN.
The timing of Neill McFadden's arrival from NC into TN seems too good to have been coincidental. He provided Dugald P. with a new wife and two new sisters-in-law, then disappeared. It is probable that he moved on to Missouri with a large wagon train which formed up at the farm of Kenneth Murchison in Hardin Coubty TN. Duncan and Colin McFadden were Neill's oldest children who may have stayed in NC. John Alexander McFadden was the youngest and raised a large family, possibly in TN.
Rackley and Tidwell are two English lines from tide water Virginia that are well accounted for. Distaff lines of Parker and Winn are not accounted for.
A Neal line follows back to John William Neal b. 1870 in NC or possibly Spartanburg, SC. Earliest record found on him is in Jefferson County, TN, in 1880, with a neighbor named Burdine Neal, probably his father. Family lore says there was peerage in his family. John was sheriff of Jefferson County about 1905-1910.