``Mack Rob'' Watlington's mother was a Parchman, daughter of James Parchman (Parchmann, Parchment, Perchment) and his Indian bride, Luona. The Parchman ancestry had escaped Mack Rob's memory by the time our first notes were made by Clara Mai Watlington in 1928-29. The name was not a common one and the ancestry of the family eluded us. We had been able to trace the descendents into Lauderdale, Haywood and Tipton counties, as well as Arkansas and Texas, but no one had done the basic research to locate the ancestors.
In materials of the Tennessee Genealogical Society in Memphis, I found references to a Dr. Gerald Parchman of Wilmington, Delaware, who had worked extensively on the family history and had filed papers with the Genealogy Society, in Columbia, Tenn., in 1976. Ms. Jill K. Garrett sent me copies of Dr. Parchman's papers which answer many of our questions. In the meantime, a lady in Alabama answered my query of fourteen years ago, indicating that she was also searching for Parchman data.
Our James Parchman, born in Tennessee ca. 1801, is one of several children of John Parchman, an early settler of the Cumberland City area of Stewart County, arriving here 1789-90. John had a brother Phillip who settled in nearby Robertson Co., Tenn., by 1796. They had migrated from Bedford Co., Pennsylvania, while their father and brother Peter had moved west to Allegheny Co., where Pittsburgh now stands. The father of the three Parchman sons, was Nicholas Parchment, or Perchmann, who was in Bedford Co., Pennsylvania, in 1773 and in Allegheny Co. in 1783. His son Peter served with Pennsylvania Militia in the Revolutionary War, and his descendents settled around Pittsburgh, Penn., while John and Phillip migrated south and west. They very likely took wives from the Pennsylvania German communities before leaving the state, although we have little data concerning them.
Phillip is found in Lawrence Co., Tenn., in 1820 and descendents of Phillip went to Monroe County, Mississippi, before the 1820 Census. We might suppose that our James (b. 1801) may have lived or visited his cousins there also. It might be a clue as to where he got his Indian bride, who affirmed that she was born in Mississippi about 1812 according to the 1850 Census. Later Jesse, a son of Phillip lived in Carroll County some years also, then moved to Texas where many of the descendents of Phillip settled. One of Fredonia's brothers, James (Jake) settled in Prairie Co., Arkansas, along the White River. Her brother, John H. Parchman, was an early sheriff of Chester County.
The name ``Parchman'' is not common in Germany nor the U.S.A. It seems that all the known Parchmans here are descendents of Nicholas of Pennsylvania, 1773-83. The name in German relates to ``a person from Parchim,'' a region of Mecklenburg, now in East Germany. Although we do not have proof that Nicholas was the immigrant ancestor, his sons were known as ``three brothers from Germany.'' James and Phillip consistently reported that their father was born in Germany but at times Peter reported him as born in Pennsylvania.
The Dr. Lonnie Gerald Parchman report [40] is now in several regional genealogy societies for those who want to read more. It is always exciting to find the ``roots'' of another branch of the family. This German ancestry joins our Tabler German ancestors to give more color to our Scotch-Irish, English and American Indian heritage.
-- Dec. 2, 1988