|
The Parke Society Newsletter Issue 2006 - Vol. 42 No. 3 |
Intorductory note by the Historian Over the years the Society has gathered information on a large number of Park/e/s lines. Our Lineage Binder collection has binders that contain many fragment lines: Those that seem to have popped up out of nowhere, with little or no evidence as to what their parentage was. We also have single binders dedicated to one founder, where we have been lucky to find good records and descendants who left more than normal tracks for research.
After this come what we call the Major Lines: those that take up several binders containing descendants' records. The first such line is that of Robert Parke, who appears to have come to what is now Massachusetts in in 1630 aboard the Winthrop Fleet. The descendants of this line are so numerous that we have actually subdivided it into Samuel (2S1), William (2W1), and Thomas (2T1) sub-lines, being the three major children of Robert. Then we have Richard (1R1) Parke who came to Massachusetts in 1635 aboard the "Defense." Moving south we find Roger (1K) Parke of West Jersey hwo appears to have arrived sometime around 1682.
Finally we come to Thomas (1C1) of Virginia who appear in records by the early eighteenth century. The following summarizes research by the Society's two major researchers of this line. Phyllis Kumler, PS#525 is the standing Lineage Leader for this line.
Regarding Thomas of Virginia (1C1)
This is a story of the earliest generations of one line of Park/e/s in America, that beginning with Thomas Parke of Virginia (1C1). It includes what we know about him and his children.
... (page 33)
I chose to review this book because of its reference to the William Parke (VA 1631) lineage. The chart shows the relationship back to William Parke of Whight House, Gestingthorpe, Essex Co, England. William1, Daniel2, Daniel3, Frances4 married John Custis. Since Daniel3 did not have any surviving sons to carry on the Parke surname, one of the conditions of his will was that his descendants take 'Parke' as part of their name—thus becoming known as the Parke/Custis line.
Martha Washington (an American Life) by Patricia Brady. New York: Viking,
2005. (Note: this book is not available in our Society Library. Borrow it from
your local library or through interlibrary loan). I believe that Martha deserves much
more credit for her part in our early nation's heritage than she has received.
Yes, George Washington was a great man and certainly a major player in the formation
of our government but very little has been said about any influence that Martha may
have had. However, my question has always been: would he have been able
to reach that pinnacle of power if he hadn't married the most eligible widow in
Virginia-Martha (Dandridge) Parke-Custis? This book is very interesting because it
presents more insight into Martha Washington's character. It is unfortunate that
Martha was a very private person...
... (page 37)
A little more on the Society's genealogical records
In the last two issues of the Newsletter we discussed how the Society organizes and maintains its genealogical records. We first talked about the Lineage Keys, how they came to be, how they are assigned and used, and how they help us keep the various Jameses, Samuels, and Georges sorted out. At this point, we have over 40 large binders of Family Group Sheets organized by these Lineage Keys.
We next discussed how we find our way into those 40-plus Lineage Binders by use of the Givename Index. Without this tool, we probably couldn't find specific Park/e/s entries on the family group sheets. With over 22,000 records, the Givename Index is a godsend in finding individual records. It is our route into the Lineage Binders.
In this piece we will wrap up our discussion of how The Society maintains its
genealogical records with a few Frequently Asked Questions.
[Explanations are given to the following FAQs]:
FAQ #1: From time to time I see references to Charts. What are these?...
FAQ #2: In some places I see Lineage Keys like S2 or R1, What are these, as they don't seem to fit the descriptions given so far?
FAQ #3:Does the Society have any other genealogical databases?
How we use the Index
When processing lineage papers, or any new materials that might be sent my way, I look for names, places, or dates that might clue me into the individual as we might have them in our current catalogue. If nothing comes to mind in that initial effort, I then turn to the Givename Index. My favorite starting point there is the spouse name. We have a lot of Johns, Georges, or Samuels, but hopefully only one of those Johns married Ann Grady in OH in 1844.
If I don't come up with any hits on the spouse name, I start to slice and dice the entries by location or year of events. Sometimes I have gone to a later generation and occasionally I find the connection there which will lead me back to the true parent and the true line, at least as how we perceive it in our Lineage Binders.
Of course, it is always possible that the individual we are looking for is not in our Lineage Catalogue. After 40 years of gathering records one would think that we had pretty well tracked down all of the existing Park/e/s on this side of the pond. Not so. New Park/e/s keep turning up here, there and everywhere. So faced with a new name, we set about creating a new Lineage Key, writing up family group sheets, and finally, indexing the entries into the Givename Index.
Remaining questions
I realize that some of you (perhaps many) are wondering why all of this information isn't already in a genealogical computer program. Probably the most straightforward answer to that question is that we have a terrible lot of information and the actual process of keying this data into some program would be very formidable indeed. While some lines are being put into a genealogical program, usually by the assigned Lineage Leader, most of our data remains in hard copy form on paper family group sheets. There are other issues here that have slowed us down from even starting a conversion. Some of them are technical, some practical. ...
It has been our practice, at least since I have been in The Society, always to bring the Lineage Binders to each Convocation. ...
We bring them so that the members can see for themselves just what all we do have.
They can look ...
(page 22)
I am happy to report that we now have 90 participants in the database—well on our way to the goal of 100 by the end of 2006! On a personal note, I am also pleased to share the news that, after several years of waiting for a genetic match with my own results (and those of my two third cousins), we finally found a new "cousin" and the search has begun to find our common ancestor. This participant, unfortunately not (yet) a PS member, is a 66/67 match with my test results, indicating a fairly tight relationship.
...
... Even if no match turns up immediately, the larger the database grows, the more likely (as in my case) a match will appear in the future. My success story is only one of many in the Park/e/s surname project, and we will share some of these in future issues to show the value of DNA testing to your own Park/e/s research.
Interpreting your Y-DNA matches
Rather than focus on a particular LK group in this issue, I thought it might be helpful to address the topic of how to interpret some of your matching DNA test results.
For a brief explanation of the science of Y-DNA testing, I would refer readers to
my article in Vol. 41, No. 1 ...
For this article, I have relied heavily on the excellent book by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak
and Ann Turner entitled, Trace Your Roots with DNA—Using Genetic Tests to Explore
Your Family Tree. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in
exploring the subject further.
Yes—we are all related!
There have been a number of books, magazine articles and television programs about how
scientists have determined that all humans alive today can trace their origins to the
continent of Africa. ...
... (page 45)