Fifth Generation

My entire life my grandfather Charles Lee, told me that he was German from his grandmother, Theadora Mae Deaton. He told me that his grandmother told him that she was German. My grandfather had a love of Germany from an early age and tried to learn the language. He would only drink German beer and loved to dance to German beer drinking music. The problem is that I couldn’t see how he was German. His grandmother’s name is Deaton which is English. I guess eventually it is Germanic if you go back to the Anglo-Saxon times, but nevertheless it is an English name. I thought my grandfather had a case of wishful thinking.

Well, sure enough he was correct and his grandmother was indeed half German. Thedora Mae Deaton’s mother was Sarah Isabella Souars from Iredell, North Carolina. She was born in 1847. Her father’s name is Philip Souars and her mother is Elizabeth. I couldn’t find anything else on the Souars. The only reference to the Souars name that I saw was the name of a man by Etienne Souars who was executed by the guillotine in Paris, France in 1784. I kept seeing references to the Sowers family in Iredell County so decided to check to see if a Sowars family matched up. In handwritten records, a “w” and a “u” look similar.

Sure enough there was a Philip Sowars who was born on Dec 4, 18oo in Rowan County, the part that because of boundary changes was turned into Davidson County. On the 20 March 1828 he married Elizabeth Overcash (Oberkirch) also of Davidson County, NC. Around 1848 they had a daughter named Sarah J. This is another case that if someone looked at written records, they would mistake the “I” for a “J”.

This is the lineage of Philip Sowars:

1.John Peter Sowars (1767-1802) Rowan,NC married Catherine Hepler

2.Johann Philipus Sowars (1733-1784) Born in Katzenbach, Altenkirchen, Rheinland-Pfalz (Germany) and died in Salisbury, Rowan, North Carolina. He married Christina Faust.

I looked on the message boards to see if anyone knew anything about the Sowars/Overcash and sure enough I found a post from a distant cousin who is also a descendant of Sarah Souars who traveled to Rowan County and did some research linking the family to Elizabeth Overcash (Oberkirch) and Philip Sowars! Elizabeth’s father may have been Michael Overcash also known as Oberkirch.

Now I understand what my grandfather was trying to tell me all of those years. I wish I could tell him that I am sorry for not believing him!