We cannot place the Gregory family back before their residence in Virginia around 1700. The earliest ancestor we have in our files is a John Gregory who married Alice Delke but this connection is somewhat tenuous since there are several Isaac Gregorys in the area that are traced to different parents.

The Isaac Gregory believed to be their child married Alse Gerard and they migrated to Union County, South Carolina around 1749. This couple had eight children, six sons and two daughters.

Their oldest son Benjamin Gregory married a Margaret Gordon in Union County. This couple had two sons and one daughter. It was their oldest son, Gordon Gregory, who moved to Georgia.

Gordon Gregory married Louisiana ? in 1799 in South Carolina. We believe that all of their children were born in South Carolina, which would pinpoint their migration at approximately 1840.

Their oldest daughter was Caroline Elizabeth Vines Gregory who married Jefferson George Sutherland.

Caroline Elizabeth Vines Gregory probably arrived in Georgia from South Carolina just before or just after her marriage to Jefferson George Southerland around 1840. Prior to that time she lived with her family in South Carolina.

The Georgia of 1840 was a very different Georgia than the one in 1808 when the Whitehead and Wise families merged. By 1840 the last members of the Cherokee Nation had already been moved out and the discovery of gold in northeast Georgia changed that area forever.

They eventually settled in Greene County, Georgia and had four children. The area of Green County that they chose eventually became Oconee County and she died there in 1887. Like others in this family group, she is buried at Ray's Chapel United Methodist Church.

Two of their children married into the family of Sandford Whitehead and Elmina Wise. John Gordon Sylvanus Sutherland married Malinda Sapphira Whitehead, and Sara Anna Susan Southerland married James Edward Whitehead.

The descendants of Jefferson George Southerland and Caroline Elizabeth Vines Gregory are only slightly easier to trace than either ancestral line. They had four children,two boys and two girls, all born in Georgia. We believe that Sara Anna Susan Southerland was born in Greene County, a neighboring county to Clarke and Oconee Counties.

John Gordon Sylvanus Sutherland, their oldest son, was a soldier in the Civil War. He fought with Company A of the 27th Georgia Infantry. After the war he married Malinda Sapphira Whitehead, a daughter of Sandford Whitehead and Elmina Wise. They had seven children, three daughters and four sons. Of the children we have traced all stayed in Georgia.

Jackson John Southerland, their youngest son was too young for service. He later married a Nancy J. ? from Alabama and apparently they moved there after their marriage about 1868. They had five children, two daughters and three sons.