Genealogy

Early families in Europe, the first generations in Connecticut in the 1630s and Pennsylvania in the 1840s. Census records. Browse queries. Find your twig.

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Olde England

Visits the ancestral family homes in Lewes south of London and in Middelton-in-Teesdale in County Durham.

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New England

Guilford, Conn., is the Long Island Sound town that the family helped settle in 1639.

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Author! Author!

Browse The Family Bookstore. At least a score of relatives have penned books.

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Coats of Arms

So far we've uncovered six!

The days of the milkman may be over, but this restored 1956 Detroit Industrial Vehicle Co. truck still makes the rounds -- at car and truck shows. Owners Barbara and George R. Parmelee [Ralph Walds, James Thompson, Cornelius C., Timothy Judson, Lyman, Amos, Nehemiah, Nathaniel, Nathaniel, John, John] are part of a Bethlehem, Conn., institution that began in 1922. At one time the family dairy had four routes and served more than 600 customers.

Commercial artist Raymond "Ray" C. Parmelee's [1882- ? ; Lewis Hall, Charles Prentice, Theodore Hudson, Theodore, Abraham, Abraham, Isaac, John, John] work graced the covers of dozens pieces of sheet music. Over the years, many copies have been sold on the web, traded by collectors and framed as art in home-decorating schemes. Take a look at some of the Ohio native's works -- and listen to "Polly," probably his most frequently sold cover on the Web.

Relatives attended a Chicago street re-naming in 2004 to honor transit mogul Franklin Parmelee [1816-1904; Edward, Ebenezer, Oliver, Jonathan, Joshua, John, John] as Continental Airport Express, successor to Parmelee Transfer, celebrated its 150th anniversary.

One of the rarest American coins is the 1804 dollar -- and this one was once part of Lorin Gilbert Parmelee's [1827-1905; Jeremiah, Gilbert, Jeremiah, Lemuel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel, John, John ] collection. Lorin established himself in the baked-bean business in Boston and amassed a number of coins that were auctioned in 1890.

While study of the recently recovered Confederate submarine continues, I have learned that an ancestor assisted such an attempt years ago! Philip Elting Parmalee [1837-aft1876; Ezra Sherman, David, Noah, Noah, Stephen, John, John] worked as a bookkeeper for Prof. Benjamin Maillefert of Charleston, S.C., who salvaged many of the ships that were sunk in the harbor during the Civil War -- he even a contract to salvage the CSS Hunley. The South Carolina Historical Society in Charleston has Maillefert's business ledgers from 1874-76 which were kept by Philip! For more on the Hunley salvage and restoration operation, click here.

Kenneth Parmelee [Kenneth Abner, Abner Augustus, Rufus Electus, Rufus Clark, Ebenezer, Oliver, Jonathan, Joshua, John, John] of Santa Fe, N.M., says he does not know how his father's World War I dog tags ended up at a woman's Texas home, but he is glad to have the items back. The tags were found while Jim Woods was cleaning out the Big Spring, Texas, estate of his maiden aunt. And the connection was made through our Web site!

• Reunion: Long Beach, Calif., aboard the Queen Mary in 2000.
• Author! Author! A chance meeting leads to Mary Alice Parmley's first book.
• Gone with the wind: The 1913 Omaha Easter Sunday tornado. ... the 1878 Wallingford, Conn., tornado.
• Catching a comet: NASA ordered its comet-hunting Stardust probe to shut down the spacecraft after a 12-year career. Relatives had their names encoded in microchips that were placed aboard the spacecraft, which encountered a comet in 2004 and brought back samples to Earth in January, 2006.
• Photo album mystery: We think we've got photos of Robert Parmley and some of his 24 kids!
• Cloudscapes: Former flight attendant Abbie Parmele, left, has created a series of cloudscapes which were displayed at an Indiana bank and another series of hay bales, which is on view in Rensselaer, N.Y.
• Our man in Havana: Michael Eleazur Parmly served as the top U.S. diplomat to Cuba during the second Bush administration.
• Got a match? This promotional matchbook cover comes from an old family shop in Sea Bright, N.J. Does anyone know anything about it?
• A brush with teaching: UC Davis art major Alex Palmerlee teaches in the ArtsBridge program.
• The old homestead: Camp Atterbury was once an Indiana family home.
• The suffragette: Annette, left, was known as the "Suffragette Hornet" as she sweet-talked and bullied the Vermont Legislature to support women's right to vote.
• Court case: Allan Wesley Parmelee, the Washington arsonist who's called "The Inmate Who Won't Shut Up."
• 'Farm in the Dell': Hikes through the Horance and Eunice Maria (Parmelee) Parmelee Farm in Killingworth, Conn.
• School days: Charlotte (Cooper) Parmley, who worked in the bursar's office at State University of New York, Genesco, recalls growing up in the Great Depression and attending a one-room schoolhouse.
• The family silver: Among the family items that have recently surfaced are the baptism bowl of Deacon Nathaniel (1771/72 - 1717/18) and son Ezra's (1714-1800) children, and a pair of candlesticks Ezra gave to daughter Jemima when she married Josiah Griswold in 1774.

• Family on a Budget: What happens when parenting years overlap with retirement? Charles and Jan Parmalee of Albany, N.Y., are finding out.
• Escaping the Tsunami: The James Aaron Parmelee family of Bangkok, Thailand, were visiting the United States when 2004 disaster hit.
• Home, sweet home: Recognize this old homestead in Virginia? Why was it called the Parmelee House?
• Home tour: Ron and Sherri Parmely open their house in Wyoming.
• Rock hound: Horatio "Harvey" Plum Parmelee, rocks from all over the world.
• Sister act: This 1857 group portrait, "The Parmly Sisters," hangs in a gallery in Washington, D.C. They're the daughters of dentist Eleazer Parmly.
• Snakes alive!: Jeff Parmele of Simpson College is on a mission to save the timber rattlesnakes in Iowa.
• Teacher honored: Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough pays tribute to Elizabeth Mallory Parmelee in a commencement address at Wheaton College shortly before her death.
• Lacrosse: Carson Parmelee is the man behind the mask at the University of Arizona.
• Tug race: The captain of the Parmelee, which plied the waters off Charlevoix, Mich., for years, learns that a head start doesn't guarantee victory.
• Tae kwon do champ: James Parmelee of Hernando (Fla.) High School, has qualified for National AAU Tae Kwon Do Championships and the Junior Olympics.
• Author: Donna Karan manager Marlo Donato Parmelee is glamorous, smart ... and suffering from multiple sclerosis. When Marlo, 37, of London, failed to find a narrative that conveyed what she was going through, she decided to write it herself. The result is "Awkward Bitch: My Life With MS" (AuthorHouse).
• A novel idea: Author Stephen Lewis takes the 1895 Michigan murder case of Julia Curtis, a servant girl buried in a shallow grave. Levi Woodruff Parmelee was convicted, then pardoned of the killing.
• Parmelee-Dohrmann: You still can find their items at online auction sites. But a century ago, the best in tabletop finery was sold at this housewares store in Los Angeles.
• What's cookin'?: Pat Parmele, a former caterer and food service director, cooks Monday dinner for son Gerik, photo editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune, and his family. She's taken to blogging many of her recipes at Dancing in the Kitchen.