My favorite ancestor name is Marillis Killian. There’s just something musical about her name that appeals to me. I have also seen her name written as Amarilla, and even Mary Elizabeth. I would certainly love to know what her family called her.

When I first heard her family name, I thought that Killian must be Irish but it turns out that her grandfather, Andreas Killian, emigrated from what is now Germany. He landed with his family, including three children, in Philadelphia and then in the early 18th century migrated to what is now Catawba County, North Carolina.

Marillis was born in 1762 in North Carolina and died in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 1819. She married Jacob Andrew Yount in North Carolina in 1782. She is my 4th great grandmother. Her daughter, Sophia, married Christopher Gross. Their son, Jacob Amos Gross, was the father of William Perry Gross whose daughter was Alice Vandeven, my grandmother.

There is a society of Andreas Killian’s descendants called the Andreas Killian Descendants Historical Association (AKDHA). They maintain a website with a great deal of information about the family and offer publications for sale about the history of the family.