The Shackfords

William Shackford, born about 1640 moved from England to the “new land”, settling in Bloody Point, New Hampshire, now known as Newington, New Hampshire around 1660.  He had many occupations – a housewright (a builder of wooden houses), a farmer or planter, and a retail merchant and also captain of a military company.

William married Deborah Trickey, daughter of Thomas Trickey about 1671 and had six children who all married.  Many became the ancestors of ship masters, or ship builders who lived in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.  Willliam’s grandson Samuel SHACKFORD fought in the American Revolution and some of Samuel’s descendants document this service in their applications to the Sons or Daughters of the American Revolution.  Other descendants became preachers, farmers, teamsters, and physicians.  Most SHACKFORDs remained in New England but some moved west to settle in lands granted to them after serving in the military or to join the gold rush.

I started researching my SHACKFORD ancestors around 1988.  After getting stuck learning about my direct ancestry, I began trying to connect all the SHACKFORDs I could find to William starting with writing (yes letters!) to every SHACKFORD I could find.  Many people responded to these letters sharing their family research and as time passed, responding to e-mails asking about their SHACKFORD family history.   I did not know at the time that I was following the footsteps of SHACKFORD family history researchers such as Samuel Burnham Shackford, Samuel Shackford of Chicago and Martha Hale Shackford but like them, conducted library research, contacted pubic offices searching for vital records, and reviewed countless copies of pages sent to me from other folks who were interested in the same family lines.  With the help of many others, I was able to connect my family ancestry directly to William and maintain genealogy as one of my many hobbies.

The project of connecting the SHACKFORDs and telling their story is a work in progress that uses this WEB site to document and share the genealogy, the stories, struggles, and successes of the SHACKFORD descendants.  I also hope to learn more about formal genealogy research as I expand these WEB pages and use many of the formal genealogy sourcing methodology to document my research.  Also I’ve added most of the SHACKFORD family tree to FamilySearch.org where anyone with a sign-in (which is free) can create their own descendency charts or see their ancestry, or create a fanchart.  The SHACKFORD family history is also is also available to those with an Ancestry.com subscription.

I welcome input from anyone interested in this family history.  Please share your comments in the specific blog or contact me via the Contact Me link.

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© 2014-2017  Joanne Shackford Parkes