PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -- One thing Larry Montague knows for sure is that his name is Legion.
For over two years, he has been trying to persuade some of the thousands of people named Montague from around the world to visit Philadelphia in 2000 for what he hopes will be the biggest gathering of the ancient Norman clan this century."We think it'll be the biggest family reunion ever organized over the World Wide Web," said the 59-year-old semi-retired developer from Memphis, Tenn. "I'm in touch with probably over 1,000 Montagues or Montague-descendants on the Internet."
The reunion, set for mid-July, is expected to bring people from as far away as Tasmania with every permutation of the Montague name, including Montagu, Montagut, Tague and Tagg.
All in all, he said, there are probably 30,000 Montague descendants living in the United States alone. Most of them are related to a pair of brothers, Richard and Peter, who emigrated separately to Virginia and Massachusetts in the 17th century.
Montague said his famous surname, with a rich history graced by statesmen, aristocrats, warriors, poets and patrons of arts and science, dates back to an 11th century patriarch named Drogo de Monte-acuto, said to have befriended William the Conqueror about the time of the Norman Invasion in 1066 A.D.
The reunion is open to any Montague: blacks descended from slaves of Montague-owned plantations in the South, relatives of English Jews who acquired the Montague name through a title purchase and Spaniards descended from English Roman Catholics who emigrated to Spain during the Reformation.
"If their name is Montague, the reunion is open to them."
The last big Montague bash was an 1882 reunion that brought about 600 people to Hadley, Massachusetts, Montague said.