Hello to All My Park/e/s Cousins!

Welcome to the first of what we anticipate to be many more blog posts regarding all aspects of our common Park/e/s ancestors. This is where we'll keep in touch with new research developments, including the lastest news about our DNA project which is opening new doors on an ongoing basis.

If you're reading this, chances are pretty good you are a Park/e/s descendant of one of the many genetically related Park/e/s families in various countries around the world included in Group 008 of the larger Park/e/s DNA Surname Project at FamilyTree DNA (FTDNA). How do we know we're genetically related? Again, DNA testing has given us the ability to discover that, even when traditional research sources are missing, and we'll be posting about this in more detail soon, as well as making research details available for you to view.

Allow me to back up and introduce myself. My name is Ken Parks, and I have been the administrator of the Park/e/s DNA Surname Project for over twenty years. I am also a member of the Parke Society (more on that in a future post) and have served in various positions with the Parke Society (PS) including five years as president.

I was born in East Tennessee, USA and my Parks branch came to Tennessee in the early 1800s from North Carolina. My "brick wall" ancestor is my 4th great grandfather, Samuel Parks (an exceedingly common given name in many of our Park/e/s lines) born between 1770-80 in North Carolina, most likely in the Orange County, North Carolina area. Our line connects genetically with other Parks lines in that part of North Carolina, and it appears they came from Northern Ireland sometime in the first half of the 18th century, well before the American Revolution.

Thanks to DNA testing, we are 99% certain that the part of Northern Ireland our Parks family came from is County Armagh, and we'll have much more to say about that area in future posts as well as providing information here on the website.

There are several other locations in the British Isles where our Park/e/s cousins appear, and we'll be posting more about that and sharing research findings on the website, so we urge you to check back often for the latest developments there. One area is the western coast of northern England and another is in the Scottish lowlands in both Dumfriesshire and Aberdeenshire.

The coastal locations in England and Scotland are consistent with what the DNA tells us about our ancient origins. Without going into detail here, our male Park/e/s haplogroup indicates we are most likely descended from ancient invaders to the British Isles from northen Europe and/or Scandinavia, in other words, we descend from Vikings!

As this site develops, I'm hoping that several other active researchers I have been working with will also contribute to these blog posts, as well as adding to the website content about our widespread Park/e/s families. The more the merrier!

There may not be a great deal of content on the website at the time of this initial blog post, so please be patient and we'll let you know as new content is added. Bookmark us and check back often. I wanted to reach out now to as many of you as I can to make you aware of this, and please feel free to share links to the blog and the website with as many of your family as you think would like to join us here!

To visit the website, go to: www.parkesgroup008.com

So, thanks for reading this and feel free to contact us or leave a comment. I hope you will look forward to learning more about our common ancestry!