Manchester, NH keeps changing its name.

So it all started with me browsing the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (because that is what you do when you want to prepare for Professional Genealogy Certification).  Well, I stumbled across an article titled "David Dickey of New Hampshire, Nova Scotia, and Maine" by Ellen J O'Flaherty and thought to myself "that's my guy!"  and so I started reading.  Well as I started matching up the names in the article to the names on my tree things started going awry.   At which point I thought well maybe I had some mistakes in my tree and pulled out all my documents to double check. That is when I noticed the name of the town or what I thought were different towns.  Well when in doubt "GOOGLE"  I googled Derryfield, NH and low and behold it is also Manchester, NH and as I read more I came to find out it is also Nutfield, NH.  No wonder I could not get my tree straightened out.

This is what I found out at Manchester, Hillsborough Co, NH History and Genealogy at SearchRoots.com

A Timeline of the name:

Namoskeag "good fishing place" Pennacook Indian name
Nutfield - 1719
Londonderry - 1722
Old Harry's Town - 1722
Tyngstown - 1727
Wilton, Maine - 1741
Derryfield - 1751
Manchester - 1810

Lesson learned?  You must know your geography and name changes when researching your ancestors. Yes, my 5th great grandfather was born in Manchester, NH however he called it Derryfield.

Until next time, happy hunting!
Kristina