All Things Shepard

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —Santayana.

History is our common story—fact and fiction in constant battle for recognition.  Genealogy is our personal story—the story of each of us as individuals, the nature of nurture and how we came to be.  This page is the story of my common and personal story.

If  you share research interests in these families, Shepard or not, feel free to drop me a line at jcshepard @ yahoo.com.

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Genealogy

Michigan

These families ended up in Michigan:

• Surnames: Shepard (from NY c.1840), Atherton (NY<PA), Brown (NY); Norris (NY<NJ<MA<England), Pugh (OH), Squire (IA); Storie (NY<Midlothian, Scotland), Turnbull (NY<Roxburghshire, Scotland), Taylor (NY), Williams (NY), Woodbury (NY); Maloy (Rossie, NY<Co. Roscommon Eire), Leddick (NY), Hurlbut (NY<CT), Richardson (NY<CT), Woodman (VT<NH<MA<England);
  Tillstrom & Olsson (Sweden)
• The The Civil War Diary of Pvt Orrin Brown Company E, 14th Michigan Infantry, 1864-1865 (transcribed).
• Descendants of Calvin Shepard tree is on Ancestry.com.

Minnesota and North Dakota

I lived in North Dakota & Minnesota for awhile.

• Minnesota Historical Society has some records indexed online.

These families ended up in Minnesota, too:

• Surnames: Culver (Duluth<MI<England), Carlbom (Sweden), Daly (PA<Ireland), Ham (ME), Woodman (MI<VT<NH<MA<England)

Montana & Wyoming & Colorado

These families ended up Out West:

• Surnames: Carlbom (MN<Sweden), Franklin, Daly (MN<PA< Eire), Habets (from Holland), Maloy (at Powell, WY from New York), Slezak (Silesia / Slovakia, Austria-Hungary), Tillstrom (MI<Sweden).

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All Things Shepard

I saw somewhere that the spelling “S-H-E-P-A-R-D” is the most phonetically correct version of this ancient term for them that tend sheep–the Sheep Herd. Shepherd, the pastoral or as I call it the Biblical term, is the more common. Sometimes I’ll enunciate the “ph” as “f” (“Sheferd”) when I’m annoyed. We’ve seen other spellings too: Shephard, Sheppard, Shepperd. I think our Soundex is S163. Census Bureau says Shepard is the 778th most common surname in the USA. Shepherd is 569, Sheppard 710, Shepperd way down there at 21238.

In German, the name would come out Schaefer or Shafer, even Shaver. Shouldn’t the dogs be German Shafers then? And if we’re related to Billy Joe Shaver, maybe he’d comp tix to his show, or send a CD?  Or Kenny Wayne Shepherd, but that would be cool.

The simple black and white Shepherd’s Check was one of the first tartan patterns developed, from undyed white and black wool of the sheep grazing along the borderlands where England and Scotland meet. In early records writtin in Latin, it is said that the name “Scyphard” appears as early as 1363 at Elgin. They that tend sheep tend not to be them that owned the land, so ancient records are not likely to be found.

yDNA tests indicate that my paternal line–my father’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s—originate in the British Isles somewhere from Celtic stock: the Western Atlantic Modal Haplotype. The maps model us living along the Irish Sea at the time the Romans came calling, based on dead men’s DNA.

We may not even be “Shepards” since my closest very-distant matches are not named Shepard.  So, I have no idea where my particular line of male descent came from before Revolution-era New York, or if my family is entitled to a tartan or not. I like it no matter.

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-JC SHEPARD