1952 – 1999 I cannot leave this story without telling very briefly Mother’s adult story. To the very end she lived the life of her sturdy, determined American ancestors. She was fortunate that her genetic inheritance provided her with physical health and the will to cope with whatever problems she had. She refused all medications, carefully managed her own healthy… Read more »

1870-1970 Illinois and Beyond Elmer Clingan arrived in Lee County, Illinois in 1893 as an employee of the American Express shipping company. He settled in the town of Dixon where he found boarding in the home of Will and Melissa Herrick. Melissa was the eldest living daughter of Christopher and Mary Parker. There were eight daughters in the Parker family… Read more »

1700-1880 Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois: William Penn came to America in 1682 and established the colony of Pennsylvania where religious freedom was protected. This new promise of religious tolerance in America opened the floodgates for waves of Scots-Irish Presbyterian and German Lutheran immigrants. The term Scots-Irish refers to the descendants of the Presbyterians from lowland Scotland who had settled in… Read more »

1640 -1710 New Netherland and Pennsylvania Many Faiths When the Puritans arrived in John Winthrop’s fleet on the shores of Massachusetts in 1630, a great migration of Europeans to the America began and continued with remarkable force into the second half of the seventeenth century.  Immigrants of Dutch, Welsh and German origin as well as members of the Puritan, Calvinist,… Read more »

1630—1780 Massachusetts, New Jersey   This chapter continues with the Puritan background of my mother, Mary Catharine Clingan Nelson. It focuses on her great grandmother Tamar (Munson) Parker who has proven to be somewhat of a mystery in my research. Evidence regarding the ancestry of Tamar, the wife of Amariah Parker, is very thin, and so we can only speculate… Read more »

1630—1780 Massachusetts and New Jersey This chapter continues the family history of my mother, Mary Catharine Clingan Nelson. The discovery of this rather large segment of our colonial heritage came after I had thought my project was completed. Recently, on a whim, I tried one more time to find my second great grandfather Abraham Parker’s history. I discovered a wealth… Read more »

1610-1830 Virginia and North Carolina In 1606 the Virginia Company of London received a charter from the newly-crowned King James I to establish an English colony in the New World.  Three ships were sent, and on May 13, 1607, the first settlers arrived and selected the site of Jamestown Island as the place to build their fort.  Sadly the first… Read more »