Henry Falconbury

Parents: Henry Jacobs Falkinburg (c. 1650-c.1712) and unnamed daughter of Sinnick Broer of Deer Point, Delaware.

Henry was an adult by 1710 and migrated to Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

To confound matters more, the descendants of Henry Jacob Falkenburg's first son, Henry, who migrated to the South, assumed surnames such as Falconbury, Faulkenbury and Fortenberry, while the descendants of his second son, Jacob, have generally preferred Falkenberg, Falkenburg, Falkinberg, Falkinburg and similar spellings.

http://www.velardi.info/falkinburg/Falkinburg-chart.htm

It is possible that Henry Jacobs Falkinburg, Sr, had a descendant from his first marriage through whom we are connected.

The following story gives some circumstantial evidence that this could be a possibility.

In the 1770s, there was a legal dispute over some land that once belonged to Brewer Senix/Sinexer, who was apparently a descendant of the New Jersey Sinex family mentioned earlier. He received 134 acres of land on the Pee Dee River in Bladen County, North Carolina, in an area which later became Anson County, on April 4, 1750. In 1756, Henry Falkenborough sold the same amount of land of the same dimensions to Jacob Falkenborough and, a year later, Jacob sold the same area to Henry Falkenbury. Two years later, Henry Falkenburg, Senior, gave this land to his grandson, Henry Falkenburg, Junior, as a gift. In April, 1770, Henry and Jacob Falconberry requested a resurvey of the land that was granted to Brewer Sinexan. The next year, Samuel Spencer, the Anson County Court Clerk, petitioned North Carolina's governor about a caveat issued by Isaac Falconbury. He wrote that the Falconbury's had no legitimate claim to the land because Brewer Sinex died intestate and that his only survivor, a son, had since died. The end result is that the Falconberry's lost the land. What I found interesting is that it was Samuel Spencer who then became the owner of that land and some surrounding property as well.

The point to all this is that Henry Jacobs Falkinburg is thought to have married the daughter of Sinnick Broer. It also appears that members of the Falconbury, Senix and other families migrated through Virginia to the Carolinas together because many of the names of farmers in Virginia are nearly identical to those found in later documents from North Carolina. The fact that Henry, Isaac and Jacob Falconbury laid claim to the property of the deceased Brewer Senix indicates that they felt that they had a right to the property. Being related in some fashion to Brewer would certainly explain their occupation of and use of the land. The fact that they could not prove that relationship satisfactorily for the court is irrelevant. Because of this situation, it would appear that we are, indeed, related to Henry Jacobs Falkinburg.

The preceding information came from the following sources which contain more details you may be interested in reading:

The Historic County of Burlington Little Egg Harbor was originally part of Burlington County. Falkinburg is discussed in the first few paragraphs.

http://www.burlco.lib.nj.us/county/history/memorable.html

Little Egg Harbor Township History. Scroll down to the section "Henry Jacobs Falkinburg, Sr."

http://www.leht.com/about/history.php

 Wilcox and Waughtel Genealogy. Click on "The Falkenberg Story".

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~waughtel/family_stories.ht...

Criminger, Adrianne Fortenberry; The Fortenberry Families of Southern Mississippi; (Southern Historical Press, 1984), page 1.

Note: I have seen many references to The Fortenberry Families of Southern Mississippi and it is probably the best compiled source of information on our family's early history. It generally traces the Fortenberry family which migrated to Mississippi by way of Georgia and Alabama, but does a good job of exploring the roots of our family tree up through Jacob Falconbury, Senior and his move to Kentucky.

http://www.falconberry.com/surnames.htm

Virginia

The earliest records of our known ancestors find them in Virginia. In 1736, a survey of land owned by Lord Fairfax of England reveals the names of three Falkenberg households: Henry, Jacob and Andrew. These three men appear in various documents for the next nine years such as petitions for roads, court cases and a baptism, and their surnames are written as "folkenburrough", "Falkenborough", "Fulkenburgh" and others. In a 1743 petition, the name John Falkenburg is found which might indicate that one of Henry, Jacob or Andrew's sons came of age and was old enough to start signing as an adult. I believe that the Henry mentioned in these records is our Henry Falconbury (born about 1700) who was the father of Isaac Falconbury (born around 1725) and the grandfather of Jacob Falconbury, Senior (1757 - 1844).

Unfortunately for these families, a dispute arose over their possession of the land. The Governor and Council of Virginia, in 1730, issued the right to settle 10,000 acres of land around the Shenandoah River to John Van Metre. If he could get 20 other families to settle in that area he would receive another 20,000 acres and his brother, Isaac, received another 10,000 acres. By 1731, the rights to all 40,000 acres had been transferred to Josh Hite. Unknown to all of those involved, this land had already been granted by the King of England several decades before and was the rightful property of Lord Fairfax. He came to Virginia in 1735 and undertook legal action against Josh Hite and his business partners. This legal dispute was not resolved until 1786 which was, of course, after the close of the Revolutionary War and, by that time, both Hite and Lord Fairfax had died.

Due to the impending legal difficulties, many families started moving out of that area of Virginia. The last Virginia record of the Faulkenburgs is dated March 13, 1745, where Henry Fulkinburg is instructed to help oversee construction of a road by the Virginia Court in Orange County. The next recorded information for Henry is less than two years later in the form of a warrant for land from the North Carolina Governor's office dated November 26, 1746. The land was situated around the Pee Dee River in Bladen County which later became Anson County.

http://www.falconberry.com/earlyhistory.htm