The Massachusetts Parker family IS NOT OUR FAMILY!

The Massachusetts Parker family IS NOT OUR FAMILY! DNA studies of both Parker families show no connection, as well as the historical and genealogical records of both families! This is a long-perpetuated error! MARY BOYNTON was not HIS WIFE! At this point, we know only that this father was probably named Joshua from various family records.

The only true evidence of his wife's name is from granddaughter Mary Melissa Summerhay's LDS ordinance records which showed her proxy relationship as a great-granddaughter to a woman named Sarah. Joshua's wife was also possibly named Mary, from a Parker family located in Pittstown, Albany, New York. (The link with Elizabeth Russell of New Jersey is not correct.

There is another Parker family in New Jersey which DNA evidence has proven recently is NOT a match with this Parker family line.

Melanie  Dewsnup 

Drusilla Parker's Family Record Book

Daniel Parker was the 12th child of Joshua  and Drusilla Parker. He married ( Annie)  Hannah Barbara Morris on 26 Oct 1887.  They  lived in Salt Lake City where Daniel worked as a teamster for several years. The couple had Daniel Delroy on Aug 19, 1888, Hannah Pearl 31 Aug 1890, Vernal Morris, 22 July 1892, Edna Cook, 25, May 1895, Louis Hartley, 14 Aug 1897, Melvin Whittle, 21 April 1900, Mildred Parker 28 April 1903 and Harold Parker 26 April 1906.

Daniel had in his possession at the time of his death in April 1970 the Parker family record book what was owned by his grandmother Drusilla Parker. At Daniel Delroys death his daughter Mary Louise Parker then had possession of the book until her death in 2003.

Daniel Delory (Del) Parker

Mary Louise Parker Lindman holding the Parker record book as Parker family cousin  Melanie Dewsnap looks on

Joshua Parker Chronology by Robert Smith

Robert Smith started this project in 2003 in response to a newly found Parker cousin. This cousin, after hearing him say that Joshua isn't a descendant of the “New England” Parkers, asked “How do you know we don’t descend from Joshua Parker born 1740 in Massachusetts?”

Robert remembers the following..."Melanie Dewsnup, another Parker cousin, had asked the same question several years earlier, at that time I gathered together all the evidence I had to prove my statement to her. Afterwards, I filed it all away, so now I had to dig it all out again. I thought that if I put it all together in one paper then all I would have to do was e-mail or send it via snail mail, thereby saving lots of time.

This project, as a lot of mine do, found a way to migrate to the “back burner”. I’d open it up from time to time and add to it, correct it, but then I’d save it away and not touch it again for weeks, all without an idea as to when or how to finish it Although it was growing in length I saw no end to it.

Then in November of 2004, cousins Suzanne Hansen and Debbie Hadden told me of the “Parker DNA Project” and of Dr. Greg Parker. When I e-mailed Greg and mentioned this paper and he was interested in it. So I began working on it again and although it isn’t perfect, I hope it will serve the useful purpose of informing others about my / our progenitor, Joshua Parker. I have scanned most of the pertinent documents and embedded these scans directly into the text. I have also supplied my conclusions that you, the reader, are free to accept or reject.

I've decided to finalize this paper, convert it to a PDF format, and pass it on to those that may be interested, in the hope of stimulating others to further research our Parkers."

To read more download the booklet which is posted on scribid - enjoy!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/219763575/A-Joshua-Parker-Chronology-v4a

What About The Massachusetts Parkers

By Melanie Dewsnup

For many decades, our Parker family tree has taken a wrong turn.   My grandfather, John Leon Parker, his grandfather Fredrick Albion Parker, and his great aunt Mary Melissa Parker (Summerhays), all traced our family back through a Parker family line that had their American roots in Massachusetts.  In the days of snail mail and lack of accessibility to records, our family genealogists used information and circumstantial evidence from the book, “The Genes of Abraham Parker” to trace our line.  The names and dates of this Massachusetts line were close enough to what we knew about our Parker family, that my grandfather John Leon Parker (particularly) felt this was the correct line.

However, recent DNA discoveries have shown that our Parker line is not a match with descendants of this Massachusetts Parker line.  Also, record/source evidence has proven that we are also not linked to this family.  We have worked diligently on Family Search/Tree to correct this mistake.

Below is the pedigree of the Massachusetts family that we have been linked to for ages – we wanted you to have the correct information, so you could see how this is not our New York Parker line.

From "The Genes of Abraham Parker 1612-1685" (p. 2)

Joshua Parker (b. 1740) married Mary Boynton (m. Mar. 15, 1764 in Westford, MA).

He had a son with Mary Boynton: Joshua, b. 1764 in Westford, Massachusetts.

They also had: Patty, Mary, and lastly Jeremiah (christened 1771).

Mary Boynton died in Westford, MA, on Nov. 30, 1771.

Joshua Sr. (b. 1740) then married Hannah Kidder (2nd Wife) of Cambridge, in Westford, on  March 8, 1774.

They had the following children: Amaziah Fassett, Hannah, Dorothy (Dolly), and Benjamin.

The source says he (Joshua b. 1740) "resided sometime in Cavendish, Vermont, then moved to Gouverneur, New York, where his daughter Dorothy (Dolly) resided and he died there about 1831."

His son, Joshua (b. 1764 in Westford, MA --“Deacon Joshua”) married Hannah Jackman of Lunenburg in 1790, and had the following children, Mary (Polly), Betsey, Levi, Joshua (b.1803), Abner, John W.

The source says, "Deacon Joshua died Dec. 22, 1827. Joshua and Hannah are buried in Cavendish, Vermont."

His son Joshua (b. 1803,) married Eunice Conant. This source says, "Joshua born April 17, 1803, married February 1830 to Eunice Conant, daughter of Jonathan and Hannah (Shaw) Conant who was born, June 22, 1797, and died May 18, 1882 (almost 85) in Cavendish, with Joshua dying there Aug. 22, 1879, at age 76.

He had the following succession: Charles D, grandson Charles C, great grandson Richard P." (From "The Genes of Abraham Parker" page 2.)

The Joshua and Drusilla Parker family photograph

While doing family research on my Parker family tree, my mothers cousin Barbara Sanders gave me picture pedigree of the family that she'd worked hard to put together. She did an amazing job back in the 80's and early 90's. It was great to see the photos of some of the family, but the photos of many of them were copies and a poor quality.

Thankfully she and her father Harold had collected them for which I was grateful. And I figured that had to be more pictures of the family other there, and that thought sent me off on to an adventure to find good photos of each of the family members. Slowly one my one the photos were discovered, and the hardest to find was of their 5th child France. Once his photograph was discovered in 2011 I was thrilled to share it with his grandchildren that are still living.

Head-shots didn't give me a sense of a complete family so that when I decided to create time period portrait of my own of my Parker family ancestors.  I've seen my photo posted on different sites and I want everyone to know its not an original photo, but instead my own composition of the family. Here's the copy I made for myself with the names of each family member on it, in hopes that other family members like yourself will enjoy it as well.

Joshua and Drusilla Parker

This photo was created in 2011 after I discovered photos of Joshua Parker 1809 and Drusilla H. Parker, discovered at the Summerhay Archive in Provo Utah.

 This photo of Joshua is the only photograph that has ever been discovered thus far. All the others portraits once examined are pastels rendering of this photograph.  Some of these pastels were discovered in Salt Lake City at their son Daniel home, and others were discovered in Idaho by Sharon Christensen from their son Parley Parker line.

My Journey

The Joshua Parker lineage on New Family Search is so confusing!  All the Joshua’s are merged together and the only documentation presented is from those who determined the connections in New York.

Joshua Parker from Genesse County, New York is also included in this merging.  Research was done in LeRoy, Genesee County, New York sometime before 1992 and it was determined “this” Joshua was not my lineage.  That needs to be done again and the documentation attached to his family.

Massachusetts often have wonderful town records on microfilm that can be accessed to find families.  How our Joshua got connected to the Massachusetts family is a mystery, but if the documentation can be produced for that family it would certainly clear up the discrepancy.

Professional Researchers often have to document lines to prove they are not the correct ones.  This is especially helpful with “preponderance of evidence” for DAR lineage proof. 

Researching two Parker lines was done for one lecture to show how “folklore” can often get confused with fact. It was proved that Butch Cassidy was not directly related to our Parker family. 

My Journey:

1960-1970

I was introduced to genealogy by my husband’s grandmother, Malinda Wells from Salmon, Idaho.  She had several legal sized Books of Remembrance compiled, hand-written or typed and creased after the page was folded to fit a standard manual typewriter.  My heart was touched.

In 1966 our little family moved to Salt Lake City and compiling our own Books of Remembrance was my primary project.  The Genealogical Society in the old Montgomery Ward building on Main Street had member submitted Archive Sheets in large binders.  Every month my two little ones and I would trudge to the library as they offered babysitting in the basement. 

The Xerox copier had just been invented and made available at the library for five cents a copy. My husband’s lines were extensive and his book became large quickly.  My Parker/Zachrisson lines had limited information. Most of the work was compiled in the early 1900’s.  The sources of information noted on the sheets were often books or personal knowledge.

Since there were so many LDS descendants from Joshua and Drucilla Parker, my decision was to work on the Beauvais because we were few in numbers.  So during the 1960-1980 period while raising children, etc.,  I wrote letters, obtained documents and discovered the Beauvais history.

In the 1970’s the Church greatly expanded the Genealogical Library providing cabinets and cabinets of microfilm to pour over. It was tedious work with very few indexes to guide the researcher.  You really had to be very lucky, or guided by the Spirit to find the information.  By 1972 we lived in San Diego, CA and much time was spent in the LDS Genealogical Library there and public libraries that had very small genealogical sections.  

1980-1990

By 1980 we were in Arvada, CO, but an opportunity came to attend the World Conference on Records in Salt Lake City.  At that time they showed a microfiche and all were amazed that a whole book could be transferred to his card and we could use a reader to search it---beats having your head in a reader with a very tired arm from reeling the film.  They also told us that some day we would be able to do our genealogy research from our homes. How prophetic was that! The computer age was upon us.

1980’s

By the 1980’s we were happily printing copies of records from microfilm and microfiche.  Classes were offered in our stakes and libraries.  By 1981 we were in Lubbock, TX and we lived there ten years.  After teaching classes, doing Extraction for the Church and helping others in our various places of residences my confidence grew.

Our children were leaving the nest and it was time for me to decide what to be when I grew up.  Being an Institute Secretary, students attending Texas Tech. University inspired me.   A course of study was a hard decision  – music, art, writing, etc, but my first love was research.  So began my journey to become an Accredited Genealogist with the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City.  The man in charge of that testing was Jimmy Parker --- funny now to recall that.

My summers at BYU included being taught by the best researchers of the day.  They emphasized documentation and much of my class work was based on finding documents and proving data.  Since LDS Church records were part of my study, the Parker family became my focus.   We were to verify the old Archive Records as described in the previous 1960-1970 section of this letter.  I could not find the references indicated on the Parker sheet, so it was time to look for the “personal knowledge.” Howard Erickson was contacted.  He was helpful with pictures and some of the history of Charles Henry Parker family.  The oldest relatives of his were located and interviewed, but they had little knowledge of Joshua and Drusilla Parker. 

When I began studying the ward records of the families and followed up with obituaries, death records, marriage records and census records, I came to the conclusion the Massachusetts origin was not correct.  All the records pointed to the New York Joshua Parker.  There was no documentation to prove otherwise.  

In 1987 I received my Associate Degree in Genealogy, passed my Mid-Western States Accreditation exams at the Library and began taking clients.

1990’s

 We lived in Southern California by 1992, I was very active in my occupation and the Association of Professional Genealogists. Sharon C and I found each other, maybe through Barbara G, and she shared with me her research on the Parker’s in New York and New Jersey.  It fit my conclusions from my college days. Sharon put me in touch with Robert Smith and his research was on going and accurate.  I felt this research was in good hands.

By the latter 1990s my work was writing, lecturing and teaching classes.  We had moved to Michigan and then back to Texas by 1999 and I slowly quit taking clients, although Accreditation qualification was continued.

2000’s

In 2004 the Beauvais Book was finished and full-time care for my aunt and mother began..

Sometime in the past five or six years Greg Parker in Oklahoma sent me packet of information concerning DNA testing and the possible connection of the Virginia Parker family to the New York Parker family.  Having attended many of the DNA classes at LDS and National Genealogical Conferences, this was not foreign to me.  My husband, was part of a grand DNA project at BYU that included many Wells’ lines.  It was very helpful in determining who connected where, solving many mysteries.

Thank you for the gathering of the Joshua and Drusilla Parker descendants this month.  I was in the parking lot the first day and a woman asked me if I was Diann Wells.  “Yes I am,“I replied to Sharon Christensen.  We had never personally met.  During the dinner I got up to get some napkins off the head table and a man asked if I was Diann Wells.  “Yes, I am,” I said to Robert Smith, again we had never met.  The next day I spoke with Greg Parker.  It was good to put faces with those good researchers.