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.