Descendants of Philip Shaak Sr.
Welcome to my web site! Many hours of work have been put into the research and documentation of these ancestors. There may be a date or some other information that isn't exactly correct, or what you may have, but for the most part everything is as accurate as I can get it. Most information can be gotten from the census. I hope you will benefit from the information I present here,and if you can, contribute your family information and history to the web site.
This all started a few years ago when I asked my father who we were related to, his answer was "nobody" .
Well, I thought, this shouldn't take too long. That was several years ago and I'm still looking for people. There are many more still to find.
Through all this work I have learned very much about my heritage and the people that came before me. I've also meet some very nice people and made some good friendships. There are some people that have been a big help and I'd like to thank them. Kay and Adam Diebus were a great help, and a very big thanks to them for having a Shaak reunion. I would like to organize a large reunion, if there is enough interest. I'd like to thank Bob Shaak for all his help, and with helping with the reunion. Also James M. Beidler of Roots and Branches, for writing a very nice artical about this work and the Shaak's.
I believe that the Shaak's came to this country from Palatines, Wirtemberg, Durlach, and Zweibrucken Gremany, or possably Switzerland, possably on the ship Lydia on Oct 9, 1749. Allthough this is speculation on my part, as of now, and has to be proved later. On this ship were Michel Schack, Jacob Shaak, and William Shaak. Of the three only Michel could write his name, which would make him the oldest male, as the oldest male was, usually the only child taught to read and write. So you can speculate that they were brothers, or at least related. If they couldn't write, then the person that was taking down the information spelled the names the way that it sounded, hence all the different spellings. I believe that the German spelling would have been Schaak, because in the German language the C is needed to pronounce the AA. The C was eventually dropped to be more "English", but not always.
In the Lebanon, Pa. area there are both spellings in the same family line.
Many of the Shaak's that came to this area didn't stay in the area, many went on to the western states, like Ohio and Kansas, and Illinois. I would really like to hear from other Shaak's, no matter what the spelling, to see if there is a connection. If you have any questions or information, please contact me.
Descendants of Philip Shaak Sr.
Send E-mail to mshaak1@comcast.net