A chronology of William Ball of St. Johns Parish Berkeley County, South Carolina and some of his descendants

Note by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

The book's title page and the cataloging above erroneously cite me as one of the creators of this work. I played no role in its creation and have formally requested the editors to cease selling or distributing copies with my name attached.

For a number of years in the 1980s, I and various others conducted research for Mr. R. C. Ball of Houston, Texas, whose objective was to identify his Ball forebears back to the immigrant ancestor. Part of my work involved disproving erroneous claims of descent from William Ball of Berkeley County, SC. I published that correction in an article titled, “Unraveling Balls of Yarn: Lessons in the Use of a Skeptical Eye (As Taught by William Bartholomew Ball and William F. Ball, Esq.),” GENEALOGICAL JOURNAL 19 (1991): 1–21.* I and Donna Rachal Mills Lennon also published other aspects of Mr. Ball’s family, but we made no attempt to create a genealogy or historic account of the William Ball family.

Front matter in this present volume indicates that late the William Ball Family Association approached Mr. Ball late in his life and while he was in ill health, requesting a manuscript that assembled what many researchers had supplied to him about the William Ball Family. Mr. Ball had that manuscript ghostwritten from his materials by someone who is not identified in the published work and his manuscript went through many alterations by others and some efforts by him to correct problems those others had made in (as he expressed it, p. 4) their “attempt[s] to edit it." An acknowledgement page generously expresses his appreciation to three researchers he had worked with over the years, of which I was one.

After Mr. Ball’s death—and after the donation of his Ball materials to the Clayton Library at Houston—Jefferson Martin Ball and H. Brooks Ball created the book that is at issue here, billing themselves as “editors.” Jefferson Ball has stated to me (email of 16 December 2012) that they published this version “as they found it" and are therefore not responsible for placing my name on its title page. Presumably, they obtained permission for the publication from Mr. Ball’s heirs. They did not obtain permission to publish the book with my name attached.

At no time did I see the manuscript. I did not participate in its development. I did not have the opportunity to review its content. I do not concur with numerous conclusions reached by those who prepared this book. I find rampant and significant flaws throughout the documentation—among many other problems. Had I been asked, I would never have agreed for the work to be credited to me in any way.

Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG www.HistoricPathways.com www.EvidenceExplained.com