Announcements
/ News |
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An arguement over a loose dog
resulted in the shooting deaths of the owner and Robert S. Parmley, above. And a Louisiana family
severely injured in a traffic accident a
year ago has an unexpected reunion with a member of the medical
crew that responded to the call. See who
else in the family is
making news.
UPDATED:
Oct. 17, 2022 
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| The Attic
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This hard-times
token was
issued by Edwin Parmele, owner of a New
York City bowling saloon, as
"currency" during the The Panic
of 1837 and the seven-year recession that
followed. He also was proprietor of the
fabled Bowery Cottage. See what else we're recently
found in The Attic!
UPDATED:
Dec. 1, 2020
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| Cybercousins |
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Say hello to two more of your
far-flung kinfolk: Dustin Parmley, a
public defender in Provo, Utah, and Sheri
Dean Parmelee, an associate professor at
Liberty University. We've got links to
scores of your online kinfolk by first
name:
A through D, E through L,
M through Q and R
through Z.
UPDATED: Oct.
17, 2022
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| FAQs |
How is our name
"really" spelled? Just what does our surname mean? Who were our ancestors in
England?
Answers to those questions and more!
UPDATED: Dec.
30, 2019
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| Features |
Imagine standing before friends
and family -- and everyone else in town
-- to profess that you enjoy making
whopee more than you probably should. Or
that you hit more than your share of the
sauce over the weekend. An old
Killingworth, Conn., deacon's notebook
chronicles Parmelees
gone wild. ... Find dozens of family letters
written long ago, a sheet music artist and other feature stories. And older features in the Archives.
UPDATED:
Ocgt. 17, 2022
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| Guilford,
Conn. |
Links and
more of the town on Long Island Sound
where the American
tale of the Family Parmelee began in 1639.
UPDATED: Nov. 3,
2019
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| Memorial Park
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At 108, retired air traffic
controller James Ernst Parmley James Ernst Parmley is the oldest known member of
the family. ... An index
to hundreds of obituaries beginning in 1995.
UPDATED:
Oct. 17, 2022
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| The Nursery |
We've got a couple of new infants
in the family! Birth
announcements of the
newest Parmelees of all spellings.
UPDATED:
March 29, 2021
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| Photo
Album |
Siblings Anna,
Randy and Allan,
who met up in France, sent us this swell
shot. We've got hundreds of photos and
portraits of your ancestors listed alphabetically by first name -- or you can
browse them from Gallery
1 through Gallery
20.
UPDATED:
March 29, 2021
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| Politics |
 Massachusetts voters have elected
Dori Parmelee, left, to a school board
seat. ... Did you know that we are
distantly related to two occupants of the
White House? Or President
Taft had his
eye on a family home in New Haven, Conn.
UPDATED: Oct.
17, 2022
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| This
Old House |
This four-bedroom,
2�-bath home is about to
have a  historical marker erected in the yard! Why? The 1890
house once
belonged to Edward J, Parmelee and
wife Annette, left, the "Suffragette
Hornet" who fought to bring the
vote to Vermont women.
UPDATED: Oct.
17, 2022
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| Your
Host |
After 40 years of collecting and
cataloguing 22,000-plus members of the
family, just who is Jim
Walters and why
on earth is he doing this?
UPDATED:
July 1, 2020
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- - - - -
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Email: ParmeleeFamily@gmail.com
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| News |
Ian
Blows Into Town
 Hurricane
Ian, tying with several others as
the fifth-strongest storm to make
landfall on the U.S. mainland,
slammed into southwest Florida
the morning of Sept. 28. With
sustained 150-mph winds, the
storm pushed its way into Lee
County, killing at least 58 and
wreaking billions of dollars in
damage. The Tamiami Trail, US 41,
was closed over the Peace River
between Charlotte Harbor, above,
and Punta Gorda. Northbound
traffic was rerouted to Marion
and Olympia avenues while those
who were southbound traffic were
detoured to Kings Highway and Parmely
Street. |
After
barrelling across the Sunshine
State, Ian regained some steam
over the Atlantic and came ashore
Sept. 30 near Georgetown, S.C.
But its effects were also felt in
North Carolina. The
Wrightsville Beach Police
Department closed the
intersection of North Lumina
Avenue and Parmele
Boulevard after a
powerline was sent down. |
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The Big Church
The nation bids
farewell to the famous at Washington
National Cathedral, including state
funerals for Presidents Eisenhower,
Reagan, Ford and Bush Sr. Above, a photo
of the 2020 funeral of Colin Powell, the
four-star general and secretary of state,
which captures three of the four central
piers, each enscribed with the names of
the original four $50,000 donors. "Parmelee"
is one one.
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First Single
Cheyenne
(Adams) Parmley calls it
"surreal." The 25-year-old
Monticello, Ky., mother of two has
released her first single, "I Can't Stay Away From
You." And recording a studio album
in the middle of a pandemic turned out to
be a real production. |
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Our
Puritan Patriarch
Reproduced with the
permission of East Sussex Record Office,
copyright reserved
The Parmeles of Lewes
For
decades relatives have debated the
"real" spelling of the family
surname, for it comes in dozens of ways.
And now we know how John Sr.
(1584-1659), patriarch of most of the
North American family, most likely
spelled it: Parmele.
That may very well be his signature,
found on a Jan. 2, 1608, counterpart deed
of covenant held at the East Sussex
Record Office, "The Keep," in
Lewes, England. John, a bricklayer,
agreed to lease a property that the
Sussex Archaeological Society identifies
today as occupied by Trinity House on
School Hill Street. He would have been
about 23 at the time, and just a few
months before the first of his five
marriages.
That wedding and the christenings and
burials of his first seven children were
all recorded at All
Saints. But in the 1630s, the family
switched to St.
Michael, a church with more Puritan
leanings. There John became a church
warden and promptly got into trouble over
the positioning of the communion table --
a flash point within the Church of
England. The diocesan chancellor,
attending a 1637 Archdeaconry Court at
St. Michael, was so horrified to see its
table remaining in its east-west position
that he personally moved it north-south.
A week later, someone who obviously
thought the table's altar-wise
positioning had looked much too popish
turned it back. A record
of the court proceedings shows the
culprit was John. Not everyone supported
John's moxie, and the parish was fined 7
shillings.
The following year, when John was no
longer a church warden, he and wife Joane
were taken to task for "living in
incontinency before their marriage,"
a serious offense among Puritans. The
only evidence offered was the birth of
daughter Rachael, baptized Nov. 5, 1638,
"within one or two and thirty weeks
next after their [April 3, 1638]
marriage" -- about one month
premature. The charge was apparently
dropped, but John had had enough of
England. The following spring, in his mid
50s, he boarded the St.
John in London for a fresh start in
New England and a reunion with John Jr. who'd departed four years
earlier. And the
rest is our
history.
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Feature
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| Paradise
& Tragedy |
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| Visit
the last privately-owned island along
Florida's Overseas Highway between Miami
and Key West. Businessman Alfred
Franklin Parmelee
[1907-1977; Franklin Henry, Franklin
Henry, Truman, Timothy Truman, Timothy,
Mark, Job, John, John] and wife
Dorothy used the 40-acre key
to escape Kansas City's harsh winters
after the harrowing death of their son
Truman. Just two years after the
11-year-old's death, a playmate confessed
to killing him. |
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| Tidbits |
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Los Angeles, 1902
On
Spring Street, facing north toward Fourth
Street, you can see
"Z.L.Para--" painted on the
side of the gas and electric appliance
store of Zelotes Larkin Parmelee
[1851-1926; James, James (?),
James, Moses, Hezekiah, Joel, John, John]
on the east side of the street. He and
brother Charles
Albert [1865-1960] were longtime
merchants.Today
the Reagan Federal Building & U.S.
Courthouse sits on the property, and,
prior to that, it was a parking lot
hundreds of Los Angeles Times
employees -- including yours
truly -- used.
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Who's a
Good Boy!
Meet
Parmalee, an AKC male
standard poodle from Poodles
of Willow Glade breeders in Texas and
Oklahoma. He has "an amazing
personality" -- of course! -- and
"been working on house
training." Follow Parmalee by his
hashtag -- #pwg_Parmalee
-- on social media.
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A
Movable Fest:
Ringing In the
New Year on the
Fells of England |
"Dad
hailed from "Up North."
Mum hailed from
"London." As kids, we
use to spend Christmas in London,
then take the overnight train up
north for New Year's Eve and stay
with family on the fells [the
Lake District]. All there was was
a row of 12 to 15 houses, mainly
two [rooms] up, two [rooms] down.
And loads of sheep. On New Year's
Eve the family in the end house
would go next door, have a drink,
then all go into next home and so
on until everyone reached the
last home where a party started.
At midnight one of the uncles --
who had to be tall and
darked-haired -- would be shoved
out of the front door. He would
make his way round to the back
door where a lump of coal was
waiting on the back step. He
would knock loudly on the door,
then pick up coal and step into
the home. This was known as
"first footing" and
would bring luck and good fortune
to everyone in the house at that
time."
--
Lynne (Parmley) Biggs
[Thomas William, George
Pinkney, Samuel "Joe,"
Joseph, Samuel, Joseph, Joseph,
Henry, John, Edmond, John, --?--,
Henry], who was born in
Hertfordshire, England, and now
lives on Waiheke Island, New
Zealand
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| Old
News |
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 1839
Auburn,
N.Y., was home to Joel Parmelee [1802-1851;
Elihu, Nathaniel, Nathaniel,
Nathaniel, John, John] who ran a
tavern, a livery stable and the National
Hotel on Genessee Street. From this May
15 clip from the Auburn Journal and
Advertiser, right, it looks like one
got away. Joel's unusual death at age 49
made the papers far and wide:
"sitting at the kitchen table
talking to his wife" when he slumped
over dead in his chair.
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1822
President
James Monroe sings the praises of Levi
Spear Parmly [1790-1859; Eleazer,
Jehiel, Stephen, John, John] in the
Feb. 20 edition of the New Orleans Courrier
de la Louisiane. Levi, called "The Father of
Preventive Dentistry" and
credited with inventing dental floss,
began his career studying teeth from the
skulls of War of 1812 soldiers. More than
a dozen Parmly men on this limb of the
family tree were dentists.
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1903
Got
formaldehyde? Yep, according to the July
25 Nashville (Tenn.) Banner.
James Cyrus Parmley
[1874-1935; Nimrod, James, Robert,
John, Giles, Hiel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel,
John, John] was fined $50 -- which
would be $1,986 in today's dollars -- for
peddling tainted milk around the city.
James and family kept moving west: to
Kellogg, Iowa, about a decade later; to
Manhattan, Mont., about 1915; and finally
Cornelius, Ore.
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| The
Honor Roll |
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 Many
members of the American family have
served in
uniform, from Colonial times to the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Details are
being added to those on the rosters for
the Revolution
and Civil wars. Photos of
soldiers and their headstones are also
being added. And we're thankful for other
submissions such as this
wooden canteen
of Connecticut militiaman Asahel
Parmele [1743/44-1784; Lemuel,
Nathaniel, Nathaniel, John, John],
which is on display at Philadelphia's
Museum of the American Revolution, and
this photo of Union drummer
boy Martin
Egbert Parmelee [1852-1945; Egbert
Benson, Phineas Meigs, Phineas, Phineas,
Isaac, Isaac, John, John].
UPDATED:
March 29, 2021
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| Genealogy |
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| The
Early Generations  The
majority of the North American Parmelee
families of all spellings
trace their roots back to Johns Sr. and
Jr., the first two generations in America
and the last in southern England.
Father, son and their families helped
found Guilford,
Connecticut,
in 1639, and today the 1st Congressional
Church, right, sits on the site of John
Sr.'s home lot. The rest of the families
-- many of whom spell it Parmley or
Parmely -- are related to the lead-mining
families of northern England who arrived
in Pennsylvania
in the 1840s. Links to continental
Europe remain elusive.
UPDATED:
April 15, 2020
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Let's
Find
Your TwigTrying to find your
branch on the
family tree? Let me know what you know --
as far back as you can -- and I'll try to
figure out where you fit in. Places are
great clues. Occupations can be, too.
Your patience is appreciated -- sometimes
it takes a day or more to put together a
reply.
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