One of the original heads of Sumner Co PILES families seems to have been Isaac PILES, who appears in neighboring Smith CO TN for the 1820 census, and in Sumner Co for the 1830 census. He was, I believe, the proven son Isaac who appears in James PILES' 1820 Orange Co NC will. Isaac was born c1775, which fits as a son of the Orange County NC James and as a father of some of the Sumner County lines. Trouble is, I get the feeling there were at least a couple of lines that crossed paths in Sumner County in this era. Some of them consistently used PILES and others seem to have been pretty consistent in using PYLE (including the three apparent PYLE siblings who married ALLEN girls and lived in pretty close proximity in Sumner Co in 1830, your William included. I've wondered if the PILES with the given name Isaac (at least two) and those with the given name Newton (several, including James Newton PILES who wound up in Franklin Co IL by the 1840s) might be related, as in Isaac NEWTON. Jim Smee Pittsburgh PA