Part of the Great American Dream is marrying the Girl Next Door. Part of the fun of doing genealogy is finding out how a boy born in Oregon and a girl born in Georgia meet and marry in Kansas. Such is the case with John Mills and Rachel Bates.

We know John Mills was born in Pennsylvania in 1687. He married Rachel Bates in 1708 in Chester County, PA. Rachel's birthplace is sometimes given as Frederick Co., Virgina. Yet there is nothing in the records to indicate her father, Joshua Bates, ever left Hingham, Massachusetts! This has led some Mills researchers to declare that the Mills-Bates marriage is not part of our line. I, of course, disagree and have a viable resolution to this quandary.

The Mills were Quakers. Quaker bachelors often travelled to distant Quaker Meetings in search of a suitable bride. I suspect John Mills got leave to visit the Hingham area where he met Rachel Bates and brought her back to Pennsylvania to marry.

Some time in the 1740s, John and family joined the Quaker migration into Virginia. Rachel Mills died before 1743 in Monocacy, Prince Georges County, Maryland. In the early 1740s, we find several deeds and records of John Mills of Prince Georges County in the province of Maryland and Frederick Co., VA. Since several of these records record a Rebecca as spouse of John Mills, we must assume he remarried.

Then, about the time of the French and Indian War, many Quaker families, including our Mills, left Virginia for North Carolina. Here they settled Anson, Montgomery, Rowan and Randolph counties.