Identifying a Neighbor on a Census Helped Me to Break Through My Brick Wall

When dreaming and planning to start this blog, one of the genealogy adventures I most wanted to share with everybody was the journey to find my third great grandfather, George Montgomery. I have composed this story in a thousand different ways in my mind, but I have realized that this story is made up of many different adventures and is too big for one condensed post. Just when I think that I've learned everything that there is to know about George Montgomery, I stumble across another incredible find!

I'm sure we all have an ancestor that we consider "ours" for one reason or another. My third great grandfather, George Montgomery, is mine. He belongs to me. Before my research, no one researching up through my family line knew who his parents were, where he had come from, his exact date of birth, or when he had died; basically, the branch died at him. Conversely, anyone who listed him as a son of his parents in their tree did not know what happened to him, who he had married, where he had gone, or when he had died; thus the branch died when he was a 9 year-old boy on the 1860 Federal Census. I was the researcher who fleshed him out and made him a complete person, with a birth family, residences, occupations, a family of his own, etc. I consider myself the expert on George Montgomery. I don't say this with pride. I say this with incredulity! This is a story of pulling threads and testing out theories. A story of luck and a story of frustrations.

When I first started researching George Montgomery, what did I have? Well, I had an 1880 census from Miller County, Georgia which had been mis-indexed and listed his name as "Lee Montgomery." He was listed as being 27 years old, married to Sarah Montgomery, born in Georgia. Both his mother and father were listed as being born in Georgia as well. He was a farmer. His children were listed as George (age 5), John (age 4), Eva (age 2), and Romulus (age 3 months).

Year: 1880; Census Place: Colquitt, Miller, Georgia; Roll: 158; Page: 388A; Enumeration District: 044

I was led to this census record after researching George Montgomery's son, Howell Romulus "HR" Montgomery who was my second great grandfather. You can read about the extensive search that I did to determine the parentage of HR's mother and George Montgomery's wife, Sallie Harris Montgomery, here. But the "Lee Montgomery" listed on the 1880 Miller County census continued to elude me. Of course, the 1890 census was lost. And by the 1900 census, Sallie was listed as living with just her son HR and her youngest daughter, Emma (b. 1887). Zooming in to the 1880 census, I could see that his name was not really "Lee" but was listed as "Geo." And this made sense: his oldest son was named George per the same census. So, I was looking for George Montgomery, born about 1851 in Georgia.

Geo. Montgomery, not Lee Montgomery as indexed.

A search for the marriage record of George Montgomery and Sarah Anne "Sallie" Harris led me nowhere. And because they were probably married in the early 1870s in Miller County, Georgia, most likely that marriage record was lost due to multiple courthouse fires and record losses.

Familysearch wiki for Miller County, Georgia.

No searches of Miller County (or surrounding counties) cemeteries resulted in a grave for George Montgomery or G Montgomery of the correct age. As he was not listed with Sallie Montgomery on the 1900 census, but she still listed herself as "married" on that same census, I postulated that maybe he had died shortly before the 1900 census was enumerated. But this was just a theory.

Year: 1900; Census Place: Cedar Springs, Early, Georgia; Roll: 193; Page: 7; Enumeration District: 0048; FHL microfilm: 1240193

I turned to collateral line research: I delved into the lives of his children. Not just my second great grandfather, H R Montgomery, but George Montgomery's other children too. I noted that his son George's middle name was "Peebles." This was most likely an old family surname. It was not only an uncommon given name (goodness, I LOVE an uncommon name!), but surely it held a clue of some kind! Tracking Sallie's lines, I was not seeing the Peebles name pop up anywhere. My hunch was that it might show up on George Montgomery's lines.

Photo by Martha Sellers Bryson added to Memorial ID 106686271 on findagrave.com.

I began looking for George Montgomery in the 1870 Federal Census for locations in Georgia. I had a few likely candidates and these young men were often in the homes of their parents so I had a few sets of parents to research as well. A quick way that I often do this is by seeing if anyone else has been researching this same person and attaching the same record to a known person within their tree. To do this, I simply click "View Record" next to each of the records offered by the search results and then look on the right-hand side of the screen for "Suggested Records." This is a quick and dirty way to note that if someone attached this particular record to the George Montgomery in their tree, then they also attached these other records to the same George Montgomery. Thus, you can very quickly look at all the records other researchers have attributed to this particular George Montgomery (or whomever you are researching) and get a feel for whether or not you think that 1) the sourcing is correct and 2) if it is your same George Montgomery.

An open-ended search on ancestry.com for George Montgomery born in Georgia around 1853 acknowledging that he lived in Miller County, Georgia at some point.

Results of search shown above in the 1870 Federal Census records.

This method doesn't necessarily exclude anyone immediately, but it gives you a quick sketch of the various lives of those who share the same basic details that the ancestor that you are researching. I take notes and include names of family members and locations at all the dates that are sourced with the records to compare with what I know my actual family line was doing at or around the same timeframe. I was still going to have to do deep collateral research on each of these families if I wished to "prove" if any of these men were or were not MY George Montgomery. But obviously, I wanted to be able to prioritize my research based on the information that I could quickly gather.

Hovering over “View Record” beside a search result provides this pop-up view in ancestry.com.

Records suggested by ancestry.com. Basically, the algorithm works because the machine learning is such that if this George Montgomery is the George Montgomery that we are interested in, these are additional records attached to the George Montgomery shown in this 1870 census within other researchers’ trees.

I also did the same thing for George Montgomery in the 1860 Federal Census for locations in Georgia. I found many of the same family units as I saw in the 1870 Federal Census search. I verified information already found in my previous search of the 1870 Census and then I turned my attention to any new family units that were uncovered during this search of the 1860 Census. One such family was Robert and Mary Montgomery in Houston County, Georgia with many children, but in particular, a boy named George living in the same household, aged 9 years old.

George Montgomery, aged 9 years old, in the household of Robert and Mary Montgomery in Houston County, Georgia in 1860.

I then let my search of this document range out from this family unit to the families living next to and around Robert Montgomery's family. Living in the dwelling right next to Robert Montgomery's family was a young man aged 24 named "George Peoples." And that's when I felt the flutter. My gut was telling me that I was on the right track with this family unit.

In the dwelling right next to Robert Montgomery’s household was a man named “George Peoples,” aged 24 years old. Year: 1860; Census Place: District 5, Houston, Georgia; Roll: M653_127; Page: 1082; Family History Library Film: 803127

As I noted earlier, my George Montgomery had a son named George Peebles Montgomery. A census taker could easily hear and record "Peoples" in place of "Peebles." Could this George Peebles living next to Robert Montgomery's family in Houston County, Georgia in 1860 be a brother to Mary Montgomery who was the adult female listed as living with Robert? I looked at "Suggested Records" for George Montgomery, aged 9 years old on the 1860 Census and none were listed (i.e., if anyone had this George Montgomery listed in their tree and sourced by this particular record, they had no additional records attached to him).

I did some quick collateral line research of Robert and Mary Montgomery as well as of George Peoples also listed and there was plenty to see, but none that led to direct evidence that could flesh out MY George Montgomery and his connection to this family. After a few days, I decided to add Robert as the father of George Montgomery in my family tree on ancestry.com and tagged him as "Hypothesis" and "Actively Researching." I patiently waited 24 hours and then went in to check my ThruLines results based on my dad's DNA kit. Not only did he have multiple DNA matches all linking him to Robert Montgomery, but Robert's wife was listed as "Mary Peebles." Bingo! I had just crashed through the brick wall that had been hindering me from discovering who George Montgomery was. Later blog posts will describe my adventures in confirming these DNA findings with direct evidence of the relationships of this family.

After waiting for the system at ancestry.com to do its calculations (this takes at least 24 hours), I was rewarded with 12 previously unconnected cousin matches.