JIM WALTERS' HOME PAGE FOR THE PARMELEE FAMILY


(NOTE: This 'Welcome Page' does not update. To see what's new, click here.)

Welcome to my website dedicated to all members of the Parmelee family. From Palmerlee to Parmaly to Parmale to Parmley -- and there are nearly 200 other ways to spell it -- the Parmelee family is virtually all one.

Here's your chance to get acquainted with the rest of us, learn our history and share your branch's news with the rest of us.

Just about everyone with this name in the United States, Canada and the Philippines today is linked by blood, adoption or slavery to the John Parmelees Sr. and Jr., two of the founders of Guilford, Conn., who immigrated in the 1630s from Lewes, an old market town about 70 miles south of London. John Sr.'s home lot sits at the north end of the Village Green, where the 1st Congregational Church, left, now stands. And most of the rest can be traced to a Parmley family from Middleton-in-Teesdale, in northern England, who arrived in Pennsylvania shortly before the Civil War.

Because there are only two main families, and the uniqueness of our name -- as opposed to all the different Smiths and Johnsons, for example -- our roots are easier to trace than most.

We're your typical American family: preachers and convicts, slaves and slave owners, politicians and suffragettes, farmers and businessmen, soldiers and prisoners of war -- even clockmakers, authors and lighthouse keepers. At least five towns were named for us: in South Dakota, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky and another in Arizona that is now a ghost town.

I've been collecting facts, pictures, clippings and stories about the family for about 40 years now and have more than 22,000 Parmelees and their spouses in my genealogy database. I've been saving family pictures and other memorabilia too. (The earliest portrait I've found is that of Ebenezer (1738-1802) of Guilford. ... And that's Joel's (1679/80-1748) tombstone, the oldest I've run across, in Durham, Conn.)

If you're not sure where you and yours belong, I'll do my best to figure out which twig in the family tree is yours.

Meanwhile, see what's going on with the rest of the family -- by clicking here -- and stop back frequently!


Search the site -- but remember,
"Parmelee" can be spelled dozens of ways:

Founded March 27, 1997

parmele, parmelee, parmale, parmalee, parmle, parmlee, parmly, parmely, parmley, parmelly, parmelley, parmela, parmerla, parmerly, palmerlee, palmly, palmerly, parmaleigh, parmile, parmilee