Serendipity
The Whole Parker Lineage
by John Watts
My e-mail address is jwatts@nas.com
and I live in
Bellingham, WA.
At age 59 and retired, I finally began
doing something about researching my family genealogy, at a time when
most of my relatives knowlegable in this history were gone. I bought
computer software, got on the internet and began to input information
left me by my mom and her cousin, a volunteer family historian.
This was relatively easy work since it was already researched; the tough part began when I tried to learn more about other lines of my ancestry. After six months of this effort, my sister sent me a book called "Palatine Progeny", which detailed the immigration to NC from Germany of my Great Grandmother. Buried deep in this text was a brief reference to her mother's parents, Richard Parker and Priscilla Parker.
Shortly after reading that I paid my first visit to the local LDS Family History Center, where I was given basic instruction on the use of their PC's and CD ROM records. My first entry, without supporting dates, was Richard Parker & Priscilla Parker.
To my great surprise, a family page was opened and I was able to establish a link to the past with some degree of certainty! Not only that, but a Pedigree showing 4 generations was available, and another and another, until I reached back about 42 generations to the year 0775! My reaction to this bonanza was to ask the woman on duty how to print out the pedigree charts.
Hearing the repeated printing of these 11 pages, the attendant checked on me and was also flabbergasted at the result! As one might expect, to go back this far, my ancestral line needed to pass through landed and literate people, meaning royalty. Whether or not this line can be proved is not particularly important to me, but it is interesting - as in reading a Michener novel.
To top it off, a few weeks later the LDS website was brought online, and I was able to verify my findings via internet. In checking the Pedigrees further, I was able to go back an additional 22 generations - to the year 0069 A.D! Now, with my mind thoroughly blown, I'm trying to concentrate on extending my other lines - without such unrealistic expectations!
Submitted: Mon Jun 19 16:19:43 2000
