Robert Cleveland Parker - Mary Ethel Sheffield
This is the third of 4 blog posts in which I will outline information about one of my 4 grandparents and their ancestral line.
I started doing family research (genealogy) in 2000, using old fashioned methods. I went back generation by generation using records on microfilm at the National Archives branch in NYC, the New York Public Library, and the NY Muncipal Archives - and obtained birth, marriage, death, census, passenger list, and naturalization documents for each ancestor. After several years and many generations, I reached brick walls in each line, due to lack of existing records. In the process I met distant cousins through genealogy message boards, and became friends and co-researchers with many of them.
I recently read that CURRENT genealogic researchers rarely use Genealogy message boards, but instead "google" names of interest, so blogs are now the most important method of making connections. I therefore decided I would post information on each of my 4 ancestral lines here on my blog - which is usually used to share my art and textile passions. This will be an extra post each month.
My father was born in Virginia and lived there and in West Virginia until he was a young man. He then moved North to New Jersey and several years later met and married my mother. I barely knew my "Southern" relatives, but since learned that my Paternal Grandfather's ancestors arrived in America early enough to include Revolutionary and Civil War soldiers and even a child kidnaped in the French-Indian War and returned 7 years later in a prisoner exchange at Fort Pitt.
My grandparents, Robert Cleveland Parker and Mary Ethel Sheffield. met in Washington Co. Virginia and eloped to be married in Bristol TN.
Cleve Parker was born in Ashe Co. NC to Thomas Jefferson Parker and Rachel Alice Graybeal.
Tom's parents were John Parker and Elizabeth Fair and this is as far as I can trace the Parker line. I have US census information for John and Elizabeth from 1850 (Johnson Co. TN) to their deaths in Ashe Co. NC. I researched all of the Wilkes and Ashe Co Parker Families from 1800 to 1840 and I'm looking for proof that John was the son of David Parker from Wilkes Co. NC. I have no other information on Elizabeth Fair.
Rachel's parents were Jacob Graybeal and Rachel Catherine Shoun. The Shoun family lived in Johnson Co. TN, adjacent to Ashe Co NC. Other names in her family: Andrew Shoun, Elizabeth Powell, Leonard Shoun, Barbary Slemp.
Jacob's parents were Peter Graybeal Jr. and Mary Burkett and his grandparents were Peter Graybeal Sr. and Christina Wampler. I did lots of research on Christina Wampler and have copies of original reports of her kidnapping as a child in PA by the Delaware Indians in 1757 and return in 1764 as part of a big prisoner exchange arranged by Lt. Henry Bouquet for General Gage - head of the British Forces in America during the French-Indian War. She and Peter probably married in Maryland and then settled in Ashe Co. NC.
I would be delighted to exchange information with other researchers of any of these families.
