Nathaniel Duckenfield was born in Cheshire, England. He came to Chowan Precinct, North Carolina by 1719 when his uncle William Duckenfield bequeathed him all of his lands in Cheshire, to which the elder Duckenfield never returned. Shortly after his uncle's death in 1722, Nathaniel Duckenfield returned to England. While abroad in England for several years at a time, Duckenfield relied on local colonists to manage the family plantation on Salmon Creek in Bertie County. He married Margaret Jolly in London in 1745 and shortly after that Duckenfield returned to North Carolina by himself. Duckenfield died in Bertie in 1749.