Early Distribution of the Southern Family in the Eastern United States
Revised 2/19/2021
1. Middlesex County, Virginia. Probable birthplace of William Southern. A family of Southerns lived here in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and the William born here in 1722, son of John and Margaret Kidd Southern, is likely to have been the William who later lived in Stokes County, N.C.
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Link to Southern Families of Christ Church, Middlesex
2. Manakin Town, Cumberland County, Virginia. French Huguenot settlement; birthplace of Magdalaine Faure in 1736. Magdalaine Faure is believed to have been "Magdalen Ford" who became Magdalen Southern.
3. Buckingham County, Virginia. Home of William's father John by late 1740s; home of William until 1774. Probable site of marriage of William and Magdalen.
4. Stokes County, North Carolina (Part of Surry County until 1789). Home of William and Magdalen Southern from 1775 until their deaths; home of their sons/probable sons Reuben, William II, and Ford until their deaths; home of other children Gibson, Boaz, John, and Judith who migrated westward between 1790 and 1820.
5. Greenville County, South Carolina. After 1788 the home of Gibson Southern; originally of Buckingham County, VA, who lived among William and Magdalen's family in NC in the 1780s. James and Samuel Southern, perhaps relatives from Buckingham Co., were also here by 1790.
6. Giles County, Virginia. After 1817 the home of William and Magdalen's son John, who with his wife Elizabeth Duncan Southern raised 15 children here.
7. Monroe/Greene Counties, Indiana. After 1819 the home of William and Magdalen's daughter Judith Southern Burch, who moved here with her husband John and other members of the Burch family. Judith and John raised nine children, all born in N.C. Also, Daniel Southern, son of Reuben and nephew to Judith, appears to have moved here after 1820 and later moved to Kentucky.
8. Warren County, Kentucky, and Wilson, Warren, and Cannon Counties, Tennessee. William and Magdalen's probable son Boaz moved from NC to Warren County, KY in 1807, and appears there in the 1810 census. In federal censuses from 1820-1840 he appears in these counties in middle Tennessee.
9. Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Another William Southern of uncertain relationship to the Stokes County Southerns lived here in the late 18th century. This William may have been born in Middlesex VA in the 1730s or 1740s, a decade or two after the William who eventually settled in Stokes NC with wife Magdalen. This William appears consistently in Mecklenburg tax lists from 1782 to 1800, and records identify his sons as John, Robert, William Jr., Jesse, and Buckner. In the early 19th century William Sr. and son Jesse migrated to Lee County VA in the western toe of the state, and son Robert settled in Claiborne Co. TN adjacent to Lee across the state line. Son Buckner appears to have moved closer to the N.C. Southerns. He married in Rockingham County NC (next county east of Stokes) in 1807 and appears in the 1820 Rockingham census.
10. Lee County, Virginia, and Claiborne County, Tennessee. In the early 1800s some of the family of William Southern of Mecklenburg Co. VA (#9) settled in this area -- William Sr. and Jesse in Lee County and Robert in Claiborne Co.