Following genealogy history of the 18th century can be quite difficult. Families of Ulster-Scots heritage, for example, tended to travel and live in small inter-connected groups and communities. To make it more difficult for researchers of the 21st century, they also stayed within small boundaries and duplicated names for their children. In addition, in today’s technology, it is quite easy to pull up names and records of people on the internet and inadvertently mix or cross them.This has happened frequently.
This is the case regarding two parallel families: that of John Montgomery and Martha Finley of Pennsylvania (referred to in this note as the JMMF group) and John Montgomery and Martha Montgomery (referred to in this note as the JMMM group) who lived their later years in North Carolina.They are two distinct, but related, family groups; but since their histories are quite similar, have often either been mixed up or mistakenly combined as one family group.This note will attempt to help identify the differences, and clarify which ones are which.
The easiest way to understand these two parallel families is by reviewing their respective children and the subsequent lives of those children. While both families chose to name their children with similar patterns, it is fairly clear that each group of children lived different lives.
John Montgomery and Martha Finley (JMMF), after arriving from Northern Ireland, lived out their lives in Pennsylvania.The majority of information regarding their lives (and their children’s lives) comes from Pennsylvania.
John and Martha Montgomery (JMMM), it is believed, lived in Pennsylvania (but the complete dates not fully determined) from about 1735 until about 1770. At that time they and all their children’s families (except for one daughter) moved south to Mecklenburg, NC. They settled near Charlotte, bought land and lived out the remainder of their lives in that area.The majority of what is known about the JMMM group (and their children’s lives) comes from North Carolina.
The daughter of the JMMM Montgomerys, Agnes Nancy Montgomery, stayed in Pennsylvania when the rest of her family moved south. She married Robert Montgomery (about 1771), son of the JMMF Montgomery's, and lived out her years with him in Pennsylvania.
Thus the JMMFs and the JMMMs became in-law families to each other about the same time as the move to NC was put together.
The other biggest piece of evidence regarding these separate in-law families comes from a set of 4 letters written by Martha (JMMM) Montgomery and three of her children in 1797 and 1799 from NC. Martha (JMMM) Montgomery’s grandson Robert was traveling from Mecklenburg to Harrisburg, and the southern relatives took advantage of his trip(s) to send those letters to their northern relatives. Grandson Robert’s journeys are also described in a sketch written by him about 1832. These letters help demonstrate that there were two independent family groups communicating with each other, and transcription copies are in the hands of many of their descendants. In all of this story, it seems to me that the one statement by young Robert Woods Montgomery, “I went up the River to an Uncle Robert Montgomery who had maried a cousen of his own - a sister of my Fathers” (and the addressing of the 1797 letters to "Mr. Robert Montgomery in Pennsylvania State, Laycomon County on Susquehannah River five miles above the mouth of Pine Creek.) is the irrefutable proof of all of this.
