The firstborn, Henry Burroughs Holliday married Alice Jane McKey in January 1849 They settled in Griffin, possibly in Tinsley Street, where Henry Holliday had purchased  a house.

John Henry Holliday was their second child, living in Griffin until April 1864, when his family moved to Valdosta to avoid the threatened Federal invasion of Georgia.

During his childhood he often visited his uncle, John Stiles Holliday and cousin, Robert in Fayetteville.

Another uncle, Robert Kennedy Holliday, lived in Jonesboro and married Mary Fitzgerald, a member of the family that later produced Margaret Mitchell, author of 'Gone With The Wind'

John Stiles Holliday moved to Atlanta in 1867 and it was in Atlanta that the newly qualified John Henry Holliday DDS set up in his first practice in July 1872