PREFACE

Genealogists use one of several number systems. One can continue from the "Ancestor Chart," starting with yourself as # 1; 32 and 33 would be parents of 16 and so on as high as you can go. The Mormons use 1 for original ancestor and 11 for his first child, 12 his second child and 111 for the first child of 11, etc. If you so desire, you can add numbers.

I have worked back from our Shacklett grandparents with our great grandfather Elijah as # 1 on first chart. Then I did the same with his wife, Mary Walker Saunders' family - male line first, female line second in each family. I returned to our grandmother and put her father, Samuel Williams, first on that chart. Last is his wife Rachel Taylor 's family. The ancestors from whom we are directly descended are underlined.

You will notice the Stiths can be traced back to England. Also the Hayden family line goes back to England. The Haydens have been doing genealogy for more than a century and much information about them is available.

All our ancestors who lived during the Revolution served in some capacity. Some served in other wars - War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War. With some proof you are eligible for DAR, SAR, Colonial Dames, Mayflower Descendants or whatever group interests you.

"Tradition has it" Shackletts were Huguenots. I don't see solid evidence of that in these records. A Williams relative wrote that his father said they came to Va from Wales. The Haydens settled in New England very early. When they migrated down to New York and New Jersey, several generations later, one married a Dutch woman. It is said our ancestor, John Wimp, married to Rosina Kirkpatrick, came from Ireland. Aside from those families, all the others seem to be from England originally.

We must give credit to Frances Fast who began this research some 65 or 70 years ago with "oral histories" and pursued it through court house record, census reports and old cemeteries.  There is a variance in much of the information. The old people had different versions of what was passed down to them. There was debate about the first Ben Shacklett's wife or wives and also John Wimp's wife. The same given names were used in each family of each generation and these families were so intermarried, not uncommon in those days, until even reading about them becomes very confusing. Blancett was a favorite name and spelled many different ways. Add to that errors in copying and you can see each person would have to validate his own material.

Ky separated from Va in 1792 and became a state with 9 counties. Hardin Co. was formed in 1792 from Nelson. Meade did not become a county until 1823, breaking off from Hardin and Breckinridge. Consequently when these families came to Ky around 1800 they settled in Hardin County and records would be at Elizabethtown up to 1823.

The Mormons are supposed to write their own biographies but I forgot why. Neither could my dearly beloved Mormon neighbor of 25 years remember why! One of her cousins in his biography said, "We wanted to leave our heirs a fragment of their cultural heritage - the story of the ancestral stock from which they came and the environment which shaped the potential of their forebears. In an increasingly mobile world of fragmented families and societies, it is important to know of our roots so that our own identities never need be in question."