Jenifer Kahn Bakkala began her career editing newspaper obituaries and has been telling the story of people’s lives ever since. A professional genealogist and a freelance writer, she is a graduate of Connecticut College.

Jenifer sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of Professional Genealogists and is past-president of its New England Chapter.

She is also a member of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, the National Genealogical Society, and the Genealogical Society of New Jersey. Jenifer was featured on the May 18, 2023, episode of Kenyatta D. Berry’s podcast, “Conversations with Kenyatta.”

Co-Author: Ancestral Lines of Iain W. F. Shepherd and Helen Waugh (Gray) Shepherd—Journeys in Time, by Jenifer Kahn Bakkala and Eileen Curley Pironti, published in 2023 by the Newbury Street Press, Boston, Mass., available at the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s bookstore.

A study of the varied backgrounds of the Barnewall, Hales, Shepherd, Beaumont, Waugh, and Gray families, this book features the account of 23-year-old Catherine (Barnewall) Hales, the mother of two small children and pregnant with a third, who, in 1824 embarked on a journey with her husband and members of his regiment that would take her thousands of miles from her homeland; and John Charles Shepherd, who began his career in London as a professor of music and pianist and later served as the music director at the Tivoli Theatre in Aberdeen, Scotland. Also featured are Sir Nicholas Barnewall, who was named Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland and Baron of Turvey by King Charles I on 29 June 1646 for his service during the Irish Rebellion of 1641; Matthew Gray and his wife Lilias, who relocated their young family from Stirlingshire, Scotland, to Marks Tey, England, moving all of the contents of their farm, including livestock, by way of the Great Eastern Railroad; and the Kingsland  branch of the Barnewall family, which stretches back to Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, and Alfred the Great.  

Author: The Maynard, North, and DeForest Families: A Story of Immigration, Industry, and Community, published by Genealogy House in 2021 and available for purchase on Amazon.com.

Told in the author’s narrative style, The Maynard, North, and DeForest Families follows the story of Charles North and Isaac Maynard, immigrants who arrived in America in 1836 and found success in the early industries of upstate New York. Making their homes in Oswego and Utica, the two men’s descendants came to occupy some of the most prominent seats in New York State’s booming textiles industry. When North and Maynard’s grandchildren married each other in 1907, they were at the apex of Utica’s economic and social stratum and grew to be leaders in their thriving community.

Winner of National Genealogical Society’s Award for Excellence, 2023.

Author: An American Family, Four Centuries of Labor, Love, and Reward: A Story of the Davis Family, published in 2018 by the Newbury Street Press, Boston, Mass., available at the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s bookstore.

A fresh approach to traditional genealogy, An American Family tells the story of the Davis family’s journey through the history of the United States. From the earliest beginnings of the New England colonies to America’s advent as an industrialized world power, Davises have made their mark in some of the most vital areas of our nation’s growth. Members of the Davis family have built new institutions and risen to lead them—and they have done it with spirit. Told in a narrative style, this is a genealogy that relates the story of one family’s contribution to a growing society over the course of eight generations.

Contributor: Ancestors of Albert James Zdenek, Sr. and Rose Marie Mildred Prince, by Kyle Hurst and Albert J. Zdenek, Jr., published by the Newbury Street Press, Boston, Mass., and available for purchase at the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s bookstore.

Branches of the Zdenek family left Germany, Ireland, and Bohemia (today’s Czech Republic) to settle in America’s Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. Pennsylvania was the hub most of these families passed through before 1950, when Albert James Zdenek, Sr. wed Rose Marie Mildred Prince in Philadelphia. The book’s three parts include coverage of five ancestral lines of Albert James Zdenek, Sr. (Zdenek, Janoušek, Kennedy, Huber, Bailey), seven ancestral lines of Rose Marie Mildred Prince (Prince, Molitor, Johnson-Grew, Fletcher, Wine, Hitt, Hagerty-McGinnis), and, finally, a touching personal memoir about the couple and their children.  

Contributor: Descendants of John Lippitt of Providence and Warwick, Rhode Island, by Christopher C. Child and Maureen A. Taylor, with Andrew Krea and Jenifer Kahn Bakkala, published in 2021 by the Newbury Street Press, Boston, Mass., available at the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s bookstore.

Descendants of John Lippitt of Providence and Warwick, Rhode Island, have served their country as soldiers in four wars. The family has contributed four governors to the state of Rhode Island and three family members have represented the state in the U.S. Senate. Moses Lippitt of Cooperstown, N.Y., was a self-made businessman, much admired in his community and a leader in civic affairs. Strong women and men from this family have been influencing American life for nearly 400 years. 

Contributor: Ancestors and Descendants of Robert Alfred Sands and Kate Van Volkenburgh: Enduring Relations, by Henry B. Hoff, CG, FASG, with Nancy Sands Maulsby, published in 2018 by the Newbury Street Press, Boston, Mass., available at the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s bookstore.

When Robert Alfred Sands married Kate Van Volkenburgh in 1890, two longtime New York families were joined. Sons of the immigrant James Sands arrived in New York in the 1690s. Lambert Van Valkenburch arrived in New Netherland in 1643 or 1644 from the Province of Limburg in present-day Belgium. From those early origins in America, each family toiled and, in the nineteenth century, achieved success—the Sands family through business and the medical profession, and the Van Volkenburgh family through business and finance.

Winner of National Genealogical Society’s Award for Excellence, 2019.