About The Shipleys of Maryland

Founded in 1925, the Shipleys of Maryland is a family organization of the descendants of Adam Shipley, an Englishman, who came to Maryland in 1668 and settled in Anne Arundel County.  His descendants quickly spread out across the colonies- and likewise our membership today encompasses most of the US- yet we all share a common beginning in Maryland.

About Adam Shipley

We trace our roots to Adam Shipley, a young Yorkshireman who came from England to Annapolis in 1668 as an indentured servant. After completing his term, he established himself as a successful landowner and tobacco farmer. Adam and his wife, Lois, raised six children. Their many descendants live across the United States and beyond.

Origins of the
Shipley Name

Shipley, Shipleigh, Shipeley, Shaplie, Sheplie, Shepley, Chipley and other variants- what is the origin and meaning of our name?

Adam Shipley's English Roots

What do we know about Adam Shipley's family and his roots in England? Our latest research has located the village where he was born and the church records of his family.

Adam Shipley in the New World

When and how did Adam Shipley come to Maryland? Where did he settle, and what did he do after he arrived?

Our Purpose and Objectives

• To promote acquaintances among the descendants of Adam Shipley, and to enjoy relationships with our kinfolk.
• To research and study all facts relating to the history, ancestry, and genealogy of Adam Shipley and his descendants, and maintain records that may be valuable to future historians and which may be of interest to state and county historical societies.
• To stimulate and foster interest in the perpetuation of the heritages of the Shipley family.
• To cooperate with other branches of the Shipley family in any efforts they make to develop information on the origins and genealogy of the family.
• To provide means of inspiring younger members of the family to emulate the sterling qualities of their ancestors and to contribute to the well-being of their community and their country.

We are a dues-paying organization governed by elected officers and an executive board whose actions are subject to ratification at the annual business meeting. The organization is a tax-exempt not-for-profit entity under Section 501(c)(7) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are not tax deductible.

Membership Information

Membership in The Shipleys of Maryland is open to:

• Any person descended from Adam Shipley, who settled near Annapolis, Maryland in 1668.
• Persons of Shipley ancestry whose descent from Adam Shipley has not been established.
• Husbands and wives of the foregoing.
• Any person adopted or otherwise raised by a descendent of Adam Shipley.
• You do not need to be a resident of Maryland

Being a member of the Shipleys of Maryland affords you several privileges.

• Our newsletter, in which you will receive current and detailed information about the goings on within the organization, as well as catch up on family news. 
• Our membership directory.
• Invitations to our annual luncheon/business meeting and our annual picnic.
• Online access to our Members-only information, including genealogy resources, Adam Shipley original records, family wills and land records, our entire newsletter archives, Shipley organization records, cemetery information, obituaries and more.
• Access to the Shipleys of Maryland private Facebook page.
• Access to our full genealogical database hosted on a separate website.

We also offer an “Associate” membership in The Shipleys of Maryland. Qualifications for Associate Membership are either:

• Any person of Shipley ancestry who does not qualify for full membership (per above).
• Organizations and individuals not of Shipley descent who have a bona fide interest in Shipley ancestry.
• Associate membership conveys all membership privileges apart from voting and being a member of the Executive Board.

Our Resources

We provide a wide variety of Shipley research resources to both the general public as well as our members.  This website is an on-going project, and we have considerably more material on hand that we plan to post in the future.  Please check back often to see what's new.

Please understand that some information is only accessible to members of The Shipleys of Maryland, and not to the public at large.  Two considerations guide our accessibility approach- 1) much of our information represents the culmination of almost a century of work by members of the clan, which has taken much time, effort and money.  This information is central to our mission and is our family’s most valuable asset.  2) we are cognizant of the risk of identity theft and other misuse of our data; limiting access helps counteract this risk.

Our Genealogy Resources

• Books- Our first genealogical book was published in 1938, and the information has been steadily expanded over the years.  Updated editions were published in 1968, 2002, and 2010.
  • The 2002 and 2010 book editions are available for purchase in our Store, although supplies are running low. 
  • We are releasing a new six-volume book series, "The Shipley Family: Descendants of Adam Shipley". Each volume focuses on a major branch of Adam Shipley’s descendants. The first volume "Keturah Shipley" is available in our Store. Additional volumes will be made available as they are completed.
• Articles- We have numerous articles here on our website containing genealogical research findings
• Genealogical Database Website- Our online genealogical database is hosted on a separate, specialized website and is available to all members. It contains all individuals listed in our 2002/2010 books. It will be updated to include our new books series once publication is complete.
• Y-DNA Project- We support a Family Tree DNA project which is compiling DNA data for the Shipley family.

Our Online Library

• Our Online Library can be accessed via the Main Menu or here. Our Online Library includes the following extensive collection of Shipley material:
• Adam Shipley- Our organization's quest for Adam Shipley's roots in England has been ongoing since our founding. All attempts to find Adam's hometown and family information proved inconclusive. The breakthrough came in 2018 when working with The City of York & District Family History Society (UK). Their research uncovered Adam's family records at Kirby Fleetham. In 2019, Thom Shipley and Chris Taylor traveled to the UK, visiting Kirby Fleetham, and other areas connected to the Shipleys.  They published an extensive report on their findings documenting Adam's birthplace and family. All of this information is provided in our online library.
• Newsletters, from our first issue in 1960 to our current issue
• Reunion reports and articles from various sources
• Pamphlets published to mark special occasions or events
• Biographies, family stories and histories
• Shipley property information, including the special Homestead Plate collection series issued by the Shipleys
• Land records
• Wills
• Cemeteries and Obituaries- Shipley internments have ranged from large public cemeteries to small family plots.  There are numerous online resources available for researching cemetery information, so our organization has instead focused on the documentation and preservation of small Shipley family plots.  Our most recent project was the restoration of the family graveyard at "Adam's Garden" in Sykesville, Maryland, which was rededicated in a special ceremony in 2021.  We also have over 600 obituaries from the Dorothy Shipley Granger collection at the Historical Society of Carroll County. 
• Shipleys of Maryland Organization information
  • By-Laws
  • Meeting minutes- handwritten minutes of each annual meeting, from the first one in October 1925, extending through 1950
  • Past presidents

External Resources

• Facebook Page- We host a Facebook page for Shipleys to connect and share family information with one another.
• The Shipleys of Maryland room at the Historical Society of Carroll County (HSCC)- The room is dedicated in memory of Dorothy Shipley Granger, past President, first Dean of the Shipleys, and a key leader of the Shipleys for many years. Upon her death in 1998, Dorothy's genealogical files were donated to the HSCC.  In 2012, The Shipleys of Maryland raised a substantial contribution to the Historical Society funding a dedicated room as the permanent home of Shipley records, both those in the Dorothy Granger collection and additional records owned by Shipleys.  Dedicated members have spent considerable time cataloging the records, a task which is still in process.  Some information is available only in the room, while some has been converted to electronic format and is available here on this website. 
• The Shipley Family Collection at the Maryland Center for History & Culture- This collection contains information on the genealogy of the Shipleys and related families. It includes handwritten copies of land grants, wills, inventories, birth records, obituaries, wedding announcements, family histories, bible records, news articles on the family, and newspaper pictures. The information is available upon request directly from the Center but is not available online.
• As noted under our Genealogical Resources, we support a Family Tree DNA project which is compiling DNA data for the Shipley family.

Origins of the Shipley Name

According to the best authorities, the English name "Shipley" is of Anglo-Saxon origin. 

The name “Shipley” is a combination of two words. The first is derived from the Old English word "scīp" (meaning sheep), a Northumbrian dialect form, which morphed into the Anglian form "scēp" to become the modern English word sheep. The second comes from the Old English "lēah", meaning a forest, wood, glade, or clearing and, later, meaning a pasture or meadow.¹ It has been defined in various publications as “forest clearing used for sheep,” “sheep field,” “sheep pasture,” and “sheep wood/clearing².”

As early as 1086, it was recorded as Scipelei/Scipeleia/Scipelie in King William the Conqueror’s “Great Survey” of property in England, referred to as the Domesday Book³. Since then, it has been spelled in various manners throughout numerous records—Schippeley (1287), Schepelay (1328), Shepley (1523), and Shipley (1554)⁴, to name a few.

References

1. The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society, ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and Mills, A. D., 1991, revised 2011, A Dictionary and English Place-Names, Oxford, OUP, p.417
2. “Key To English Place Names.” University of Nottingham. Retrieved 4 March 2025. http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Yorkshire WR/Shipley
3. “The Domesday Book Online.” Retrieved 4 March 2025. https://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/
4. Armitage Goodall, Place Names of South West Yorkshire

Adam Shipley's English Roots

Recent research indicates that Adam Shipley was born and raised in an area of North Yorkshire called Kirkby Fleetham, 45 miles north of the town of Shipley in West Yorkshire. Once two very small neighboring villages, Kirkby and Fleetham shared only one church — St. Mary’s Church of England. The two became one town about 1670, just after Adam Shipley left for the New World.

Adam’s father was named Richard and his mother was named Elizabeth. There are no birth, baptism, or marriage records yet found for Richard or Elizabeth due to the absence of any verifiable records for most residents of this area prior to the 1650s. It is reasonable to assume his parents were born around 1625.

St. Mary's Church, Kirkby Fleetham

However, church records have been located that show that Richard and Elizabeth had five sons: Adam (1648), John (1650), Robert (1651), George (1655), and Thomas (1658). Sons John and Thomas died in infancy. Richard and Elizabeth then died within a month of each other (possibly because of a deadly English plague), leaving three orphan boys. Elizabeth was buried at St. Mary’s on December 7, 1658, one month after the death of her youngest newborn son, Thomas. Richard died and was also buried at St. Mary’s on “Januarrie” 8, 1659, one month later.

The tragedy of these deaths meant that Adam, the eldest son at age 10, was now in charge of his two younger brothers: Robert, age 6, and George, age 3. No evidence has been found of what happened to the three boys over the next decade, but when our Adam showed up in the Colonies in 1668, leaving England at age 19, his brothers were left in England at ages 15 and 12. Further research is needed to find out what happened to these two brothers of Adam. Unfortunately, there are no Shipleys remaining in Kirkby Fleetham; only church records verify their existence.

Our Online Library contains additional information on Adam roots, including images of the original church records.

Adam Shipley in the New World

Record of John Pawson's Transport of Adam Shipleigh (Shipley) to Maryland

For over 350 years, from February 1668 until today, the records documenting the descendants of Adam Shipley after his arrival in the New World have been preserved, and more recently, compiled into genealogical books published by The Shipleys of Maryland organization. These records reveal that Adam Shipleigh (Shipley) arrived at a port in the area now called Annapolis, Maryland. He was one of 10 young men solicited by the merchant John Pawson to come to the New World with the promise of free land and a new life. It is also known that to pay his passage, he, and so many others like him, would willingly serve five to seven years as an indentured servant to a master, who would pay their indebtedness in exchange for their labor for the agreed period.

Adam died intestate at the age of 49 or 50, leaving his six children under the age to receive property. Richard, the eldest son, is recorded as owner and administrator of the estate via the old English law of primogeniture. Despite his outright ownership, and against English tradition, Richard distributed the farms to his mother, brothers, and sisters. The family moved to Queen Caroline Parish in what is now Howard County, Maryland, where their names and those of their families can be found in the Christ Church Register².

With four healthy sons to carry on the family name and two daughters to continue the bloodline and pride of their father’s reputation, Adam firmly established the base for a new clan of Shipleys to enjoy the boundless opportunities the New World had to offer.

From this beginning came the roots, the very foundation, of one of the older families in America. Through successes in agriculture, education, medicine, military service, the ministry, and every possibility in between, the Shipleys are notably one of the founding families of the state of Maryland. With documented history of more than three and a half centuries, we remain a proud and growing clan: English from our start, Shipley in our blood, and American to our core.

References

1. Adam, the second child of Adam and Lois Shipley, left no will nor any record of marriage or children. There is a legend that Adam and his wife were killed by Indians. As such, no genealogical information for Adam² is available.
2. Digital images of the “Christ Church Queen Caroline Parish Howard and Anne Arundel Co’s Parish Register 1712–1937” can be found on the Maryland State Archives website: https://speccol.msa.maryland.gov/pages/speccol/microfilm.aspx?speccol=2639