Ancestress cousin - Sofia Saxon Elmore Ross

Sophia Saxon Elmore Ross. My grandfather's aunt, Alice Luella Rogers married John Elmore Ross, who was Sophia Elmore Ross' grandson (and born 2 years before she died.)  Anyway, she was mentioned back in this post HERE.  That was because her father was in the Revolutionary War, and my father was named after him. But actually my father was named after his father, who was perhaps named after a cousin, but probably not the Revolutionary war hero himself.  Strange how a name lost meaning through generations...and my grandmother may have known why she named her first born son Elmore, then used the same name for my father's middle name.

Sophia Saxon Elmore was born Oct 18, 1794, in Laurens County, South Carolina. (This county is located about 100 miles due south as the crow flies from where I now live.)  

Revolutionary War, Musgrove Mill battlefield, near Cross Anchor, Laurens County, South Carolina.

Her father was General John A. Elmore.  He had 18 children with his 2 different wives, and Sophia was the third oldest child.  Her mother died when she was 10, and there were 2 younger and 2 older siblings.  Her father remarried within a year, then had the other 13 children, the ones born before 1817 in South Carolina.  Then apparently he received land in Alabama, from the Revolutionary War and moved there around 1819, where his last 5 children were born. 

Not Sofia Elmore Ross

Sofia Elmore Ross lived most of her life in South Carolina.  She married George W. Ross (a doctor) in South Carolina on May 31, 1810.  (Don't you figure that W. stood for Washington?)  She was 15.  He was 31.  They had six children, and the youngest died at age 7 months, the same year and within a week of her father.  (Perhaps there was an epidemic.)

Her father, Gen. John Elmore, had settled in Alabama, and her husband died in Laurens County, SC in 1825, so she may have moved with her children to live with sisters, or parents following that early widowhood.  When a woman married a much older man, that is likely to happen.  

She may have lived in Alabama for a while. Her family was full of politicians, lawyers, legislators and military men.  Elmore County, Alabama, was named after her father, and he has a big marker on his tomb.

I've not been able to track her life following her husband's death, but she is burried in Canton, Madison  County, Mississippi where she died April 21, 1852 at age 57.  If I took the time to see where her children were married, or where her grandchildren were born, I could probably figure it out.  But I'm glad to have had her as my cousin-in-law.

Canton, Mississippi Cemetery