Feb 1, 2011

Parks Genealogy


I've met a Parks "cousin" from Pennsylvania through our shared passion for genealogy - particularly Parks genealogy. Not only do she and I have a lot in common but she has also had her family's DNA entered in a search for her Parks ancestors. Her DNA comes the closest to ours, being one marker off from that donated by my cousin Richard. Interestingly, Carol's line includes a James Parks born in 1761 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. There is a possibility that he could be the father of my James Parks born about 1790-1791.

The immigrant in her family was Joseph Parks, born about 1727 in Antrim, Ireland, who came to America and settled in Virginia in 1760. Joseph married Rebecca Clark who was from England. They had six boys and two girls, some born in Virginia, some in Pennsylvania. The family migrated from Virginia to Pennsylvania and in later years, Joseph and Rebecca went back to Virginia and are buried in Fishersville, Augusta County, Virginia in the Tinkling Springs Cemetery.

Their first son, James 1761, was married and had two boys in the 1790 Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania census.

We are not yet able to locate the wife that James 1761 married, but she died between the birth of the boys (one of which might be my great great grandfather) and James' second marriage in about 1803 to Carol's ancestor, Barbara Steer. We had thought we'd found a first wife named Jean Buchanan married about the right time in Virginia, but it turns out to be another James Parks who then settled and remained in Kentucky - while her James remained in Pennsylvania and possibly Virginia. The hunt continues!