Penley and Pendley families of North Carolina

A number of Penley's appear to have emigrated into western North Carolina about 1770 - 1780. The consensus seems to be that they came from the Shenadoah Valley of Virginia and settled in and around Burke Co, Wilkes Co and/or Rutherford Co. Big chunks of the family broke off to go to Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, and Alabama, but a large branch stayed in North Carolina. The descendants of William Pendley who died about 1820 in NC and whose descendants in turn settled in the Mitchell Co, NC area use the Pendley spelling, but the vast majority of the rest use the Penley spelling. I have recombined from the earlier split into 2 files in an effort to make sense of who goes where when we have spelling changes occuring multiple times in the same family. We use the Penley spelling to help with searches and to put the families together, but eventually we will try to use the same spelling that each family uses. Most of the families residing in North Carolina in 1850 seemed to stay in the state, but a smaller group migrated to Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, California and many other areas. Some of the early information of North Carolina is recorded here under the Early North Carolina Collector. This continues as work in progress and any corrections or suggestions will be warmly received.

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