Many folks are of the opinion that the Fulfords in North America stem primarily from the English Fulfords. Has anyone been able to establish a direct link back to the old world?

      This village, with its views of Dartmoor across the Teign was for many generations dominated by the Fulford family. A visit to the Perpendicular church - restored in 1840 - demonstrates this, with monuments to a family that could claim unbroken male descent since the time of Richard I. Excerpt from postcard from John & Carolyn Fulford of Milbourne, FL, to Mrs. J. E. Pigott (nee Fulford), of Charleston, SC, dated 7-26-1990.

The following was excerpted from "The King's England":

      Its wooded hills slope to the River Teign, and the tower of the medieval church, reached by steps among the thatched cottages, has a glorious view over the heights and hollows of a typical Devon landscape.
      The stone chancel screen is modern; the gallery and the pulpit (with its panel of cherubs) are 18th century; a proud old eagle holds the Bible, and an ancient chair in the sanctuary has a collection of odd carvings: snakes and grotesque birds, and what looks like St. Margaret spearing the dragon with a cross. Golden seraphim with wings sweeping before them are in fragments of 15th century glass, with a monk, a bishop, two saints, and a group of holy women. The church has a silver-mounted earthenware flagon of 1576, and on a shelf in the chancel is an old German almsdish in brass, picturing Adam and Eve. Very interesting are the old painted roof bosses.
      The monuments to the Fulfords are the most interesting memorials. Sir Thomas lies with his wife on a grand tomb of 1610, rich with colour and carving, the canopy over them hung with flowers and golden bosses. Even his blue and gold armour is decked with roses, but his wife has an anxious air in spite of her flowered gown and the band of jewels round her headdress; there are seven prim Tudor children on a shelf above them, all in black except for a son in painted armour. Gilded shields front the tomb, and over it hang an old helmet and a sword. It is thought that a recess below a window may be the grave of Sir Baldwin Fulford, High Admiral of England 500 years ago, whose legendary exploit in rescuing a princess from a Saracen's castle is represented among the carvings at Great Fulford, the home of the family for 700 years. The house as we see it is mainly Tudor, the work of Sir John Fulford, whose grave here is almost hidden by the lectern.
      Great Fulford was saved from destruction when besieged in the Civil War because the Roundhead shot went agley. The pass which General Fairfax finally gave to the defending Fulford is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. A portrait of Charles Stuart which we found hanging in the dining-room is said to have been given by his son, the young prince having stayed here during the time his future crown was hanging in the balance.

      Tostig, the renegade brother of King Harold of England, arrived in Norway to try to gain support from hardrada. Led into the delusion that the English Earls would support his tenuous claim to the throne, Hardrada harried the east coast of England with perhaps as many as four hundred ships.
      He arrived in the area of York in Septermber, 1066. He immediately marched on York and easily beat the hastily gathered local army at the Battle of Fulford Gate, just south of York. The gates of the city were thrown open to him. He did not enter but merely demanded that fifty of the city's most important men should be brought to meet him as hostages of Stamford Bridge in five days time. He then retired to his fleet at Riccal. Excerpt from "Kingmakers: The Story of the House of Godwin"

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