Skillman Genealogy Site

Hosted by: William Alfred Skillman (WAS) - My Home page

605 Forest View Rd., Linthicum Heights, MD 21090-2819

Seventh Great Grandson of Thomas Skillman

July 1, 2008

** HELL-DEVIL SKILLMAN No, not me, but probably Arthur Augustus Skillman, born 10/23/1882, who lived in Princeton, NJ in the early 20th century and owned an express company. The New York Times of 11/6/1915 reported that Hell-Devil Skillman had predicted the score of the Princeton-Harvard football game. Earlier "The Bookman" reported in 1911 that he was known as an ancient prophet and predicted the score of another game.

**UPDATED 2/4/2008**
online version of Tom's descendancy - Skillmans of America - 2008 (after 2 years!)

**UPDATED 2/4/2008**
Unprivatized Descendancy of Thomas Skillman (TomsTreeFull - Downloadable)

Privatized Descendancy of Thomas Skillman (TomsTreePriv - Downloadable)

**NEW** Cousin Thomas Skillman of Skillman, N.J. The New Jersey Star-Ledger on NJ.com wrote a nice piece on my 96 year old cousin, who still lives in Skillman.

Introduction

The purpose of this site is to be a resource for genealogical research on the Skillman surname. The name Skillman was brought to America from England by Thomas Skillman in 1664. Virtually all Skillmans in America (except descendants of slaves who took the Skillman name) are descended from Thomas. Since this Thomas had only one son, Thomas II, we are all descended from him, too. Two of his daughters married Atens; so many Atens are descended from Thomas. The third daughter had one child, no known descendants. In England, Skillmans go back to somewhere around the 13th century. Other spellings include Skilman, Skileman, and Schilleman. Considerable effort has been expended to establish the ancestry of Thomas, but without success.

Tracing your family tree.

Below there are numerous links to several types of resources. The next two are probably the most comprehensive and may help you to link back to Thomas Skillman, our immigrant ancestor. The downloaded versions are probably easier to use than searching the online data, but it's your choice. If you need help, click on my link at the top.

How you can contribute.

I encourage you to send me your family tree data, no matter how large or small. Data should include as much as you know of full names, birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, and locations for all events. Other data such as occupation, military service, education, etc. will also be used. The preferred format is a Backup Zip file from RootsMagic. Second choice is a Family Tree Maker file. Third is a GED file. Fourth is a text file in any format. Send it all to wskillman@aol.com. If you have material unsuitable for e-mail; photocopies, pictures, etc., you can mail it to me at the address above.

Privacy Policy - To protect the privacy of living persons, only the names of living persons appear on the online descendancy and the "Privatized" report below. All other data such as birthdate, birthplace, education, etc. is suppressed. The password to the "Unprivatized" report below is available by request to legitimate genealogical researchers. This report contains data known to the author.

A Group Sheet form is available online that you might find handy to submit family data. You fill out the form for each family and when you hit Enter/Return it is sent as e-mail to the author. Be careful not to hit Enter until you are ready to submit the form.

ONLINE FILES/Web Pages:

Skillmans of America and their kin (SOA)- Wm. Jones Skillman (WJS) (1835-1914)

These web pages contain a collection of articles posted by WJS in the N.Y. Genealogical & Biographical Record from 1906 to 1908. It is the descendancy of Thomas Skillman. You can read more about it on the site. WAS added three more chapters, which update a few lines. You can also download a Word version from that site. This site became too cumbersome to update manually so no further work was done on it. The online site and the downloadable files below were created automatically by my genealogy program, RootsMagic and include about five times as many people as the original SOA, which is still available online for historical purposes..

Skillmans of America - 2008 - Wm. Alfred Skillman (WAS) (1928- ) Updated February 2, 2008.

The genealogy report (descendancy) on this site contains descendants of Thomas, their spouses and spouse's parents. This version lists 9453 direct descendants (including 4607 Skillmans) down to the 14th generation from Thomas. No unlinked persons are included. This file is privatized so no data other than name is given for living persons.

DOWNLOADABLE FILES:
Privatized TomsTree: (February 4, 2008) You can download a PDF version of Toms Tree, TomsTreePriv.pdf . The corresponding GEDCOM TomsTreePrivged.zip can also be downloaded here. It unzips to TomsTreePriv020408.ged. (Although the author attempted to include all descendants and relatives mentioned in the original SOA, and much of the original text, some may be missing. You may wish to download the original SOA file to check for missing data.)

Unprivatized (Full) TomsTree (February 4 2008)- this unprivatized, password-protected, PDF version of the above report is available for download as TomsTreeFull.pdf. It has 9453 direct descendants (including 4607 Skillmans) down to the 14th generation from Thomas.

To obtain the password to open this file, send me an email requesting the password with an explanation of why you are interested in Tom Skillman's descendants.

The Skillmans of New York - written by Francis Skillman of New York, published in 1892. Much of the genealogy data was used by William Jones Skillman in "Skillmans of America" above. Contains a lot of material about New York.

Genealogical Record of the Strycker Family , William Scudder Stryker, Camden, N.J., 1887. This book starts with the brothers Jan and Jacob Strycker, who emigrated from Holland in 1652 and 1651, respectively, to New Amsterdam. It includes eight more generations of descendants of these men. The file is 308KB and is in PDF format. (Note that the y in Strycker should have an umlaut, those double dots.)

My interest in the Strycker/Stryker family stems from the fact that Jan Strycker's 4th great granddaughter, Maria D., married my great great grandfather, Joseph A. Skillman, so that Jan is my 8th great grandfather. In addition, I am aware of at least 10 other Skillman/ Strycker marriages.

How many people are descended from Thomas?

Since we will probably never catalog all of Thomas' descendants, we can only say that the numbers below represent a minimum as of February 2, 2008.

Thomas of 1664 had four children. Rootsmagic reports 9453 descendants for Thomas I, 9119 for Thomas II, 318 for Elsje, 1 for Sarah, 11 for Lijsbet.

Thomas II had five male children that have descendants alive today: John, 3124, Isaac, 2806, Jacob 1751, Benjamin, 1197 and Joseph, 1450. The total is 10,328 which exceeds the 9119 above due to intermarriage among the five lines.

Skillman related web sites

Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War by Wm. S. Stryker, published 1872, Trenton, N.J. The link is to the search page for several books. Click on the title, enter the surname to search, for then click "Submit." A search for Skillman gets 8 hits, 6 for Skillman surname.

Record of Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Civil War, 1861-1865, Wm. S. Stryker, published 1876, Trenton, N.J. The link is to page one of the index where you can search for any person. You can search for Skillmans at page 143 of the index. The book is online courtesy of the New Jersey State Library.

Becky Skillman now Lt. Governor of Indiana. See her at http://www.in.gov/lgov/

The English Conquest of New York- (1664) Describes the 1664 takeover of New Amsterdam from the Dutch, becoming New York under the English. Thomas Skillman was a soldier in the force under Col. Nicholls. This is a chapter of the book History of New York by John R. Brodhead, published in two volumes 1853, 1871, New York, NY, Harper & Brothers.

England Expands Its Empire - A Newsday article by Steve Wick about the Nicolls expedition and subsequent changes to New Amsterdam/New York.

Mike Skillman (England) - Mike is one of our English cousins; he has supplied numerous pictures that may appear on this site eventually.

Skillman Forum on GenForum - Numerous threads here, including info on Thomas.

Places named Skillman - Skillman, N.J. was named after Abraham J. Skillman, my great granduncle. My grandfather, William Newton Skillman, was station agent there from 1893 to 1938. Brooklyn, N.Y. sports two Skillman Avenues and one Skillman Street. Dallas, TX has a Skillman Street. There is also a Skillman, KY. See the link above for more.

Descendancy of Thomas - Darwina Michael

Hall, Skillman, Einstein - Barry Hall's Family Genealogy page. His mother was Helen Skillman, and he is a 7th great grandson of Thomas.

GenForum for: Somerset Co., N.J. : Mercer Co., N.J.

Mercer Co., N.J. Genealogy Web Site - has hundreds of queries, a huge surname list, references and lookup volunteers.

Kingston, N.J. history site. It is in the general area settled by Skillmans. From the site: "Jacob Skillman rebuilt a mill on an earlier mill site at the Millstone River."

Franklin Township, N.J. - Many Skillmans lived/live in central northern New Jersey.

Auten (Aten) Home Page - T. Schulte - Annetje Aten was the wife of Thomas II, so we are all descended from the Atens, too. The earliest known Aten is Hendrick, born in Holland about 1590. His son Adriaen, the father of Annetje, came to America in 1651.

Beekman Genealogy - Phyllis Smith-Noah - Thomas II's son Isaac married Magdelena Beekman, so about one-of-seven Skillmans are descended from Beekmans. The earliest known Beekman is Cornelius, born in Germany in early 1500s. His great grandson Wilhelmus came to America in 1647 and founded the town of Rhinebeck, N.Y. Magdelena was the great granddaughter of Wilhelmus.

Alice Stipak's Page - Stryker, Skillman, Hageman, click on Second Generation for Randall Skillman.

Skillman Foundation - From web site: "The Skillman Foundation is a resource for improving the lives of children in metropolitan Detroit. The Foundation applies its resources to foster positive relationships between children and adults, support high quality learning opportunities and strengthen healthy, safe and supportive homes and communities."

Rose Pilhasky Skillman(1887-1983), widow of Robert Henry Skillman(c.1884-1945), a 3M executive, and 5th great grandson of Thomas, started the Foundation.

Robert H. and Rose P. Skillman branch of the Detroit Public Library. "The Rose and Robert Skillman Branch of the Detroit Public Library, formerly called the Downtown Library (opened January 4, 1932), was renamed the Rose and Robert Skillman Branch Library to honor a generous gift from the Skillman Foundation."

Guide to Skillman, N.J. Just for fun, here's a site run by "Beachcomber" that has links to information about Skillman, N.J.

Henry Howson Skillman, Sr. is a patent attorney in Philadelphia, PA. He is also Tom's 7th great grandson and my 5th cousin. This is his page on his employer's site.

Skillman Library, Lafayette College, Easton, PA was recently renovated and modernized. Read about it here. It should be noted that Lafayette is the gridiron arch rival of my alma mater, Lehigh Univ. in Bethlehem, PA. The library is named after another attorney, David Bishop Skillman, 1887-1965, a 6th great grandson of Thomas, who received his Law Degree from Lafayette in 1913.

Early New Netherlands Settlers by Robert Gordon Clarke. Descendancies of Thomas and many early settlers who intermarried with Skillmans.

Nationwide Gravesite Locator; Veteran's Administration site listing veterans and a few spouses buried in National and other cemeteries. Search for Skillman gets 67 hits, but I can only identify 15 of them (as of 4/16/2006). Can you identify any? Let me know.

Trish Macdonald Skillman's home page, author of Writing the Thriller, Buried Secrets, Someone to Watch Over, and Quick Reference Rules for English Grammar. Her husband, Jerry Skillman, is an 8th great grandson of Thomas.

Judith Skillman's home page: Judith is the author of eight books of poems. She has won numerous awards, including the Eric Mathieu King Fund from the Academy of American Poets. She has received grants from the Centrum Foundation, King County Arts Commission, and the Washington State Arts Commission. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Northwest Review, Poetry, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Malahat Review, JAMA, and many other journals. She lives in Bellevue, WA with her husband Thomas Lee Skillman, Jr., an 8th great grandson of Thomas, and her three children.

Liz Skillman's biography: Liz is a singer and songwriter. "She has a New York City based trio, Joaquim, whose melodic alt-rock songs have been described as "great modern pop" using "haunting, lyrical imagery."

The Eureka (Nevada) Sentinel newspaper was edited by three generations of Skillmans: Archibald, Edward and Willis. Read about the Eureka Sentinel Museum here .

Tornado Victims Mr & Mrs Columbus Skillman and Barbara. The afternoon of April 3, 1974 a large series of tornados killed 315 people and injured over 5000 in the mid-West. This link is to the obituaries of people killed in the Brandenburg, KY area where 31 people died. Scroll down to the 5th obit to find out how this Skillman family was wiped out. I have been told that these Skillmans are descended from slaves.

For What It's Worth Department: The Wright Brothers are my 7th cousins, twice removed, thanks to my 4th great grandfather, Thomas Skillman marrying Mary Beekman, great great granddaughter of Jan Thomasse Van Dyke, 6th great grandfather of the Wrights.

Visitors since July 1, 2008, courtesy of RootsWeb: