Parkers of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia

Paternal Y-DNA testing has connected the Parkers of Bucks County, Pennsylvania with the Parkers of Hampshire County, West Virginia. Both families likely originated from New Jersey in the early 1700s perhaps near Nottingham, Burlington County, which is today near Trenton in Mercer County.

The progenitor of the Bucks County, Pennsylvania Parkers is believed to be Joseph Parker, who was probably born about 1720-1730. Joseph Parker probably married several times. His first wife appears to be a McMasters, who is discussed elsewhere on this website. They had at least five children: John, Joseph, Margaret, William, and Elizabeth.1 Joseph later married Ann Edmonds and had one son, Nathaniel.2 He may have married one more time because in 1785 Joseph Parker of Upper Makefield, Bucks County placed his daughter Hannah as an apprentice with Ann Heston.3

The progenitor of the Hampshire County, West Virginia Parkers is John Parker, who migrated to Patterson Creek, Hampshire County about 1749. He is believed to be born about 1700. He married Catherine Pearson, daughter of Robert Pearson of Nottingham, Burlington County, New Jersey. Robert Pearson’s 1751 will listed his grandchildren John, Robert, Richard, Nathaniel, Elizabeth, and Catherine Parker.4

Paternal Y-DNA for Parker

One male Parker descendant of Joseph Parker of Bucks County, PA and one male Parker descendant of John Parker of Hampshire County, WV tested their Y-DNA. Results indicate that Joseph and John Parker likely share a common ancestor, who was born about 1706, but it is probably a bit earlier this mean date given their respective known genealogies. It is quit possible that Joseph and John were brothers or at least cousins. The figure below from FamilyTreeDNA shows the time tree for the two testers, whose common haplogroup (branch on the paternal family tree) is I-FT69762. Their haplogroup is shown in orange as the last group at the bottom of the image.

Parker Y-DNA haplogroup I-FT69762.

How Can I Help?

If you would like to learn more about your Parker ancestry and help determine when and where in Europe we originated, please contact me. Specifically, please consider

  1. Sharing your family tree and other research. Sometimes the most random bit of information can break through genealogy brick walls.
  2. Sharing your Ancestry DNA results. As my prior research and blog demonstrates, I have extensive experience and success in analyzing DNA and genetic clusters. Ancestry makes sharing your list of DNA matches easy to do as they promote collaboration among its members (see Ancestry.com article here).
  3. Taking an autosomal DNA test (e.g., Ancestry.com) or Y-DNA test (i.e., FamilyTreeDNA.com). The more descendants of the original Hampshire County, WV and Bucks County, PA progenitors who test, the more genetic coverage we have of their original DNA and the more likely we are to find connections among ourselves and thus accomplish the project’s aims. If you have interest in taking a test but a test is not currently a financial priority, please contact me as limited funds are available for sponsoring a test.

More About Me

Elsewhere on this website you can learn more about me and the quality of my research. I descend from William Boyd (1753-1836), who married Mary McMasters (1755-1832) in Bucks County, PA in 1778.5 I believe, but cannot yet prove, that one of their ancestors was a Parker. Autosomal DNA suggests this is the case.

Sources

  1. “Public Member Trees,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com, accessed 15 Aug 2024), “Wilson120411” family tree by rwilson7135, profile for Joseph Parker. ↩︎
  2. Bucks County, Pennsylvania, land deed, Arthur and Sarah Thomas, Elizabeth Morrison, Nathaniel Parker to Philip Miller (1796), Newbritain, Book 28, p. 423, Recorder of Deeds, Doylestown; database with an image (www.familysearch.org), image 570 of 691, film 008067827. ↩︎
  3. Justice Docket, John Chapman, 1783-1786, Joseph Parker to Ann Heston (1785); database with image (www.familysearch.org), film 172927 item 1. ↩︎
  4. Archives of the State of New Jersey (1924). Calendar of New Jersey Wills, Administrations, Etc., Volume 3 – 1751-1760. A Van Doren Honeyman (Ed.), Somerville, NJ: The Unionist-Gazette Association Printers. ↩︎
  5. U.S. Presbyterian Church Records, 1701-1970, Willm Boyd and McMasters (1778), Newtown Presbyterian Church, Baptisms, Births, Marriages, 1769-1812, p. 20, image 22 of 148; database with image, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com, accessed 14 March 2022); Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ↩︎