The only Ballard male I can find in the area who was old enough to be Theophilus’s father is the Jordan Ballard who married Anne Raines on 17 Dec 1826 in Grayson County. In the 1850 Carroll Co. census he was listed as age 46.

Mary's first three children were born out of wedlock. The "Isaac Quesenberry Record" states that the father of the first, Theophilus, was a Ballard. John P. Alderman records that the father of the third, Nancy M., was assumed to be Aaron Largen, whom Mary later married (when he was 20 and she 30). He may have felt unable to marry an "older woman" until he was able to support her.