Hello all
Re locating Robert Brown. First of all Moneydig is one townland of many in the area with Browns living in it. The Presbyterian church called Moneydig was a new foundation in 1835 so families who ended up attending Moneydig would have been listed in other congregations before then. After 1835 Browns who lived in the townland of Moneydig might or might not have attended Moneydig church, there were other options for them. Robert Brown is in Bovagh and attending Moneydig church at the end of his life but may not have been born there. So looking just at Moneydig may be a bit of a red herring.
I have been trying to link "my", (now "our" )Robert Brown into a family of Browns who started out in Trinaltinagh and attending First Garvagh. This was the family that produced Dr John Brown of Aghadowey and also other prominent ministers, doctors and later even a notable artist. The Garvagh visitation (incidentally carried out by many times great uncle James Brown, who is my relative on the paternal, co. Antrim side!) shows Samuel and Elizabeth in Trinaltinagh. John Brown is known to have been in this family and is there in 1796. I am trying to post this without access to emails, since I can't open email without losing this post! So I can't quite recollect the details here; John Brown says he was fifth or sixth son of this family but if he was, there is a missing name in the 1796 list. There is room in the listing for a son to be away from home. My /our Robert would have been the age to have been away as a naval ship's boy or a young soldier. Other Trinaltinagh Browns have military careers in the Londonderry Militia; I have found them listed as quartermaster and such in the early 1800s. If Robert had had a military career of whatever sort, he would have been a very likely candidate to be appointed a caretaker by a gentry family when he retired. A farmer who had been farming on his own farm all his life might not have been keen to move to a caretaking role, and if for example a lifelong farmer had failed in farming he would not have been appointed. SO I think Robert for whatever reason floated back into Aghadowey area and MAY have been known to gentry who would have been involved in military careers/ militia, or could have taken a recommendation from an army officer after the wholesale disbandments after the Napoleonic wars
Finally I have a note somewhere about a document in PRONI that shows Robert Brown standing surety for a bond of #150 in a transaction between Thomas Hogg of Caheny and Robert Hezlett the landowner of Bovagh, in the 1830s, when that was a lot of money