February 14, 2021 6:23 PM

Pages 2891
Whole Number 134

THE PARKE SOCIETY


Theodore Edward Parks is the Historian and Genealogist of the Parke Society, an organization formed over twenty years ago "to serve as a clearing-house for records of descendants of all Park/e/s immigrants who came from the British Isles." An initial application fee of $5.00 is charged for membership, with annual dues of $10.00. A newsletter is published three times a year for the Society's members. This publication "includes articles about interesting ancestors and contemporaries as well as background information on the conditions under which they lived."

We know from our research on the Sparks family that the name Park (Parke and Parks) is sometimes confused with Spark and Sparks, especially where members of the two families lived in the same community. There is even the delightful story, without proof at this time, that a man named Park once moved to a new community leaving some scandal behind him and, wishing to start a new life without letting people know of his past, he added an "s" on each end of his name and thus started a new Sparks line.

Anyone interested in the Park (Parke & Parks) family should write to Mr. Parks at P.O. Box 590, Milwaukee, WI (53201).