There are John Foster’s in every county of every state throughout all of American history.  In fact in most counties at any given time you will find multiple John Fosters. So while I am grateful to late cousin Barbra Bandy Jones of Oklahoma for first telling me that we descend from a John Foster born about 1752, it seemed that with such a common name, there was very little hope of learning more.  I must thank cousin Robert Ivey of South Carolina for his research work on the families around Grindal Shoals, Union County, South Carolina for making the connection with ‘my John Foster’ that helps differentiate him all the others.  Through his work, we know his wife’s name and through his wife, we know how he was connected to his neighbours along the Pacolet River.  And through these connections will come any possibility of tracing this line of Fosters back further.

Robert Ivey shared with me the contents of a letter written in 1786 by John Jasper Jr. of Augusta Co. Virginia to his parents in South Carolina. In it he gives the news, he sends some money with instructions on some family business and asks to be remembered to his brothers and sisters and to all their husbands and wives and to John Foster and Molley.  “Molley” it develops, is Mary McElfresh Foster, the sister of Susannah McElfresh Jasper, the letter writter’s own wife.  When one understands the Jasper family one realizes that many of the neighbours living along the stretch of the Pacolet River in that part of Union County (and later Cherokee County) South Carolina, are there because of their Jasper family contacts.  See Jasper Jamily, McElfresh Family, Hames Family.