I am wondering about the assumption that William Gent used the surname Mills. I realize that you are not the first to make this assumption. Yet there is quite good evidence that Alexander Mills had a son named William Mills, and that William Gent was a different person.


Alexander Mills wrote his will on 26 September 1777 [probated 1 November 1777]. To his "well beloved wife Alais [Alice] Mills" he left 8 pounds.


Also, he left to 7 children each the sum of one shilling. Most researchers believe those 7 children were offspring of his first marriage. The four daughters named in that group all were identified by married name.


But another set of 7 children were to divide the remainder of the Mills estate. All the daughters in that group were yet unmarried. It isn't clear whether all of these were children by the final wife Alice, or whether they were just the remaining underage children of the testator.


What is significant, though, is that in that final group, Alexander Mills began the string of legatees with "William Mills my beloved son."


Then, at the end of the will, Alexander Mills "made and ordain my said wife Alias Mills to be my executor and William Gent my executor..."


Clearly, there were two Williams in this blended family.

1) William Gent was the son of Charles Gent (or Chent), Sr. The widow Alice _____ Gent remarried to Alexander Mills sometime after the 1761 SC will of Charles Gent, Sr., but the date of the second marriage is undetermined. It is not absolutely certain that Alice was the mother of both known children of Charles Gent, Sr. (Charles Gent, Jr. was born 1754/5; William Gent was born by 1756 at the latest.)

2) The exact date of birth of Alexander Mills's son William Mills is uncertain. A combination of estate and tax records suggest that William Mills was born between 1757 and 1764. Thus, the uncertainty in birth date makes the mother of William Mills unclear. Apparently, this William Mills died in 1815 in Washington Co., GA.


As added evidence that William Gent was a different person from William Mills, there is a land entry. On 3 June 1778, William Gent paid fees to "B. Lamar" for a Wilkes County, GA land entry for 200 acres. [Robert S. Davis, Jr., 1981, "Lost Georgia Land Grants, 1775 and 1778" in Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly, Spring 1981, pp. 3-4, 25-30.]

The land involved in the William Gent fees is on Pistol Creek, almost atop the present boundary between Wilkes and Lincoln Counties, Georgia. It lies inside the present jurisdiction of Lincoln County (which was created from Wilkes in 1796). When granted, the land was adjacent to land held by the Alexander Mills heirs. In September 1784, the 200 acres were granted to Churchwell Hooper. The plat made for Churchwell Hooper (as recorded in the Georgia Surveyor General Land Records) says "above plat represents a plat of which together with the receipt was returned to the Surveyor Genls. office in the name of William Gent June 3rd 1778, By Basil Lamar, DS."


Thus, it seems to me that William Gent used his legal surname as an adult in Wilkes County, Georgia. William Mills was another, younger individual who in his youth probably lived within the same Pistol Creek household as did William Gent.