Matthias was the eldest son of Peter Carland (aka Kerlin), and nephew of Kentucky frontier explorer Thomas Carland (Kerlin) and Daniel Carlan who became a significant landowner in southwest Virginia.

Brothers Peter, Thomas's & Daniel's surname name was Kirlin/Kerlin when they lived in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland. All 3 left and came to the American colonies to escape British authorities who wanted to arrest them for rebellious and seditious activities against the British-backed landlords during the Ulster Land Wars of 1769 through 1774. The Antrim rebels were known locally as the "Hearts of Steel" who resisted the oppressive rent hikes on tenant farmers in Antrim and other parts of the Ulster Plantation.

All 3 brothers fought in the Revolutionary War. Private Peter Carland joined the Continental Line's 11th Virginia Regiment on January 5, 1777 and was one of Colonel Daniel Morgan's corps of 500 elite Riflemen whom George Washington himself specifically sent (in August of 1777) to stop the British advance at the Battle of Saratoga, where the decisive victory was won in October 1777, and turned the tide of the war in favor of the Colonists. Peter later died as a POW in 1780 or 1781 after the Siege of Charleston SC. Thomas and Daniel were officers in the Henry County Virginia Militia.

Because they were fugitives, Peter first (in 1770) adopted the American alias surname "Carland" upon arrival in Philadelphia from Belfast, and Thomas and Daniel did likewise when arriving in Norfolk VA from Belfast in 1774. The name change documentation (from Kirlin/Kerlin to Carland/Carlin) is consistent with oral Kentucky family history passed down to me from my previous Carlin family generations. Their American descendants alive today can be found with surnames Carlin, Carlen, Carlan and Kirlin.

After the war ended, Matthias's uncle Thomas Carland became a father-figure for brother Peter's children and led the Carland migration (of his and his deceased brother Peter's families) into Kentucky. Uncle Thomas Carland had been at Daniel Boone's Fort in its first summer of 1775, and he made several trips via the Wilderness Road during the war to explore and stake claims in the unsettled region between Louisville and Lexington during the 1780's. Finally, in 1792, Thomas surveyed and settled 1,400 acres that included present day Taylorsville, at the confluence of the Salt River and Brashear's Creek. By 1795, all of Peter Carland's children (sons Matthias, John & Thomas and daughters Sarah and Hannah) had homesteaded 210 acres along Buck Creek, about 5 miles north of uncle Thomas's property. Peter's children were married as follows in Shelby County KY:
Matthias married Eleanor Van Dyke in 1804 and died in Spencer Co. KY in 1834.
John married Frances Boyd Glover in 1800 and moved to Daviess Co. KY; died in 1835.
Thomas married Mary Wilkes in 1798 and died in Spencer Co KY around 1835.
Sarah married Samuel Sebastian in 1797 and died in Spencer Co KY before 1830.
Hannah married Isaac Monnet in 1799 and later moved to Indiana; died in 1850.

Uncle Thomas Carland sold some of his 1,400 acres to friend and neighbor, Colonel Richard Taylor (father of later President Zachary Taylor). By 1803, uncle Thomas had sold all of his Kentucky land and moved his family to Plattin Creek Missouri, just across the Mississippi River from Illinois, where he died the following year 1804. Matthias's 1st cousin Thomas Carlin (son of his uncle Thomas Carland/Carlin) would become governor of Illinois in 1838.

Finally, it should be noted that recent DNA and period-specific documentary evidence has shown that this group of Carlin/Kerlin families are NOT related to the Kerlin families of southeastern PA and western New Jersey, which included multiple Peters, Thomases and Matthias Kerlins through the 1700s. This other group were German-Dutch whose immigrant patriarch Peter Keurliss/Kerlin and family came as part of the original Germantown PA settlement sponsored by William Penn in 1683. Some of their Kerlin descendants wound up in nearby Henry County Kentucky by the early 1800's, but again, the County Antrim Northern Ireland Kerlin/Carland/Carlin group is NOT related to those Pennsylvania German-Dutch Kerlins.