My fiancee's family is part-Sosebee from North Georgia, and in researching my families and hers at the same time, I've found some information on Job Sosebee. This might be old news for you, but I hope it helps some. I don't know Job's father's name, but I have some clues I've not yet followed, leading into Nash Co, NC.

This is compiled from dozens of sources, and of course, might be inconsistent with facts I have not yet found.





The Sosebee name originates in the Danelaw district of Northeast Britain, in lands originally inhabited by Scots, Picts, and Celts, collectively known as Britons. The Britons were ruled for years by the Roman Empire, until approximately 410 A.D. When the Roman soldiers were removed, the remaining villages were left unguarded, and open to attack and invasion by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Sometime between the 6th and 8th century, new invaders came from the Scandanavian regions. These Northmen, also known as Normans and Vikings, were characterized as blond-haired, blue-eyed, courageous, and cruel. G.K. Chesterton described them and their ships (many years later):
Misshapen ships stood on the deep
Full of strange golden fire
And hairy men as huge as sin
With horned heads came wading in
Through the long, low sea-mire

The Danish Vikings’ disdain for Christianity, which was the most widely held religion of Britain at the time, and their cruelty in battle forced King Alfred to raise an army against them in 878 A.D. After several battles had been won by each side, Alfred won the final battle, captured the Viking leader, and converted him to Christianity. Alfred devised a treaty which forced the Danish Vikings to evacuate the Kingdom of Wessex, but permitted them to keep the Danelaw districts (Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Northumberland). This region continued to respected Danish laws, rather than English laws, hence the district’s name “Dane-law.”

The Sosebee name is a place name, originating from the Danish word “Saurebe” meaning a farm or village on marshy ground, as many people in the Danelaw district lived in marshy areas. Written records, though sparse, list the name through many transformations over the next several centuries. The earliest recorded name of a Sosebee is Odierna de Sourebi, found in records as early as 1095. Richard Saurbi in 1381, Isabel Sorebi in 1485, Thomas Sawerbye in 1597, Chirstopher Sourbi in 1651, and Robert Sorsbie in 1623 are a few of the spellings used over the years.

Several early Sosebees fought in the Crusades, the Hundred Years War, and the War of the Roses. Since then, many places began to be named after this family in Westmoreland, Cumberland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire. Several castles belonged to the Sowerby name, including Castle Sowerby (Kiresorebi) in Cumberland.

Sosebee ancestors in the Danelaw were primarily farmers, loyal to the Crown of England, but after Captain John Smith founded Jamestown in Virginia, many of the merchants and richer farmers began migrating to the New World. 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). Sixty-one families moved in 1822 from Burke and Rutherford Counties in North Carolina, and several other families from Spartanburg county moved as well. Land was purchased from the Cherokees for one cent per acre, and the white man moved into what is now Northeast Georgia. With few roads to guide them, and their cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and chickens to slow them down, it took about two weeks to make the journey that can now be made in a car in under three hours.

Job Jr. married Sarah Cannon while still in Spartanburg, where they remained after his siblings and mother moved to Georgia. 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 his 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. After the Civil War, they moved from Habersham County to Walker County, Georgia, which needed rebuilding after Sherman’s march from Chattanooga to Atlanta. 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 and Clifton Counties, Texas. One son, at least, named Andrew Jackson Sosebee, remained in Northwest Georgia, around Walker and Catoosa Counties, where his decendants still live and prosper.

Many 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 odd-numbered year in Gainesville, GA, at the southernmost part of the Nacoochie Valley.






Generation No. 1
1. MR. (JOHN?)1 SOWERBY was born in England.
Children of MR. (JOHN?) SOWERBY are:
2. i. JAMES2 SOWERBY, b. 1611, England; d. Bet. 1678 - 1679, Surry Co. VA.
3. ii. FRANCIS F. SOWERBY, b. 1630, Surry Co., VA; d. 1678, Surry Co. VA.
4. iii. THOMAS SOWERBY, b. Bet. 1632 - 1634, Surry Co., VA; d. 1695, Surry Co., VA.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/2895/Sowerby_Part1....
Sowerby name 1095 Odierna de Saurbi
Reunions - gainesvilletimes.com
... Reunions. Family. Sosebee Family: Descendants of Job and Elizabeth Tankersly Sosebee, also spelled Sosby ... Garland Family Research Association: 25th annual meeting June 26-29 at Best ...
www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20030622/localnews/524... - 18k -(site disabled)







Happy Hunting!

William Skinner
SkinnerTrees@hotmail.com