Down the Rabbit Hole

Wow! Kinda fell down the genealogy rabbit hole today. Downloading Google books, mostly county histories, with Parks references in them, I stumbled on an account of one Xingo Parks, tried and convicted for leading a miner’s strike in Pennsylvania in 1875. With a name like that, I had to go there. Turns out he was the son of an Indiana doctor I’ve been researching for an upcoming Parke Society newsletter article. Xingo Parks served as a 13 year old drummer boy in the CW, seeing action in the battle of Murfreesboro. His father was a CW surgeon, and his stepmother, Dr. Marie J. Parks, was the first female doctor in Indiana. Fascinating family, with several other doctors and others who served in the state legislature. What I envisioned as a two-part article just grew longer!