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Sosebee connections

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Sosebee connections

Posted: 29 Oct 2004 7:26AM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 27 Feb 2006 1:06AM GMT
Surnames: Sowerby, Sosebee, Sosby, Sosbee, and more
Here's some of my research results:

In about 1640, James and Thomas Sowerby sailed from Hull, England to Virginia, where they held land patents in Surry County. Their other brother, Francis, soon joined them, and they became successful planters. A few generations later, the Sowerby family moved southward to richer grounds and more open lands of Nash County, NC.

Job Sosebee was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, joining the Militia in North Carolina in 1778. He fought in the battle of Stone Ferry at Charleston, SC, and later around Ninety Six, SC, where he helped capture the infamous Redcoat Tory, Bloody Bill Cunningham. For his service in the Revolutionary War, Job was given two tracts of land totaling 700 acres in South Carolina, near Peter’s Creek in the Spartanburg area. He moved there, built a modest plantation, married Elizabeth Tankersly, the daughter of George Edward Tankersly and Elizabeth Bolden. He also began spelling his name Sosebee, since most of his war records and land records were consistently listed as such. Of Job and Elizabeth’s ten children, one line continued as Sosby, and one continued as Solesbee. The other eight adopted their father’s chosen spelling as Sosebee. Some believe the more modern spelling comes from the combination of the Sowerby name and Sousberry, the name of a Welch sea captain in Britain’s colonial days.

Job Sosebee died in 1821, in Spartanburg, SC. Elizabeth and his children (except for Job Jr and James) joined a wagon train of mostly Methodists, and ventured to the Nacoochee Valley in White County, northeastern Georgia. (see “The Move to Nacoochie” in Georgia Genealogy Magazine).

Job Jr. married Sarah Cannon while still in Spartanburg. After Sarah died in 1840, Job Jr and four of his five children moved to Habersham County, Georgia, in 1846, not far from the rest of the family in White County. One son remained in Spartanburg to oversee the family’s land interests that remained in the area. In 1850, Job Jr remarried Amanda LeCroy, who was 25 years old, exactly half of his age of 50. Together, they moved from Habersham County to Walker County, Georgia, which needed rebuilding after Sherman’s march from Chattanooga to Atlanta near the end of the Civil War. His family remained there together until around 1890, fourteen years after Job’s death. Several of his children fulfilled their father’s dreams of moving Westward when they boarded a train in Chattanooga bound for Texas, where they lived in Parker County for many generations. Sosebees still live in the area around Parker County, Texas.

Most of Job and Elizabeth’s children and their decendants remained in the mountains of North Georgia, spreading from White county and Habersham county into what is now Towns, Union, Fannin, Gilmer, Pickens, Catoosa, Walker, Chatooga, and Dade counties.

The National Sosebee Reunion is held every other year in Gainesville, GA, at the southernmost part of the Nacoochie Valley. The next one is scheduled for 2005.



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