deed reference to Toby Waller, the next piece of documentary evidence Haley uncovered was the 1870 Census listing for Tom Murray's household. Therefore, there is a gap of over ninety years relying on the Haley family's oral history. The Millses investigated the oral history and found no corroborating evidence in the historical record. Tom Lea was not born into a poor family; he came from a well-to-do planter family. The record does not show a Kizzy or her son George among Tom Lea's slaves. There are also no records of a mulatto George Lea married to a Matilda. Haley described George Lea as a skilled chicken trainer who was sent to England when Tom Lea ran into financial difficulty in the 1850s. However, Tom Lea died during the winter of 1844–45. Further, slavery itself was not legal within England and Wales and was unsupported under either statute or common law as was established in 1772. Further still, the British Slavery Abolition Act saw all remaining acts of slavery abolished within British and overseas territories by 1833 (largely with the exception of territories controlled by the East India Company). Response Haley initially conceded that he may have been led astray by his African research, and admitted that he had thought of calling Roots a "historical novel". However, he stated that Ottaway's article was "unwarranted, unfair and unjust", and added that he had no reason to think that Fofana was unreliable. Haley also criticized his detractors' reliance on written records in their evaluations of his work, contending that such records were "sporadic" and frequently inaccurate with regard to such data as slave births and ownership transactions. Haley asserted that for black genealogy, "well-kept oral history is without question the best source". Ironically, the Millses discovered a better fit to the oral history in the written record than Haley himself had found. Dr. William Waller's father was Colonel William Waller, who owned a slave named Hopping George, a description consistent with a foot injury. Colonel Waller also owned a slave named Isbell, who may be the Bell in Haley family legend. Tom Lea's father lived in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and he may have purchased some of Haley's ancestors from the Wallers. When the Lea family moved to North Carolina, they presumably took their slaves with them. The Leas lived in close proximity to the Murrays and Holts, and there are three Kizzies associated