99,321 Global Parks Family Members

Parks Family History

This very interesting medieval surname is Anglo-Scottish, but of French origins. Recorded as Park and Parke, the patronymics Parkes, Parks and the rare occupational Parkman, it describes a person employed in or at a "park". This was not an area of flowers and walks, but a fenced hunting ground, kept specially for the use of royalty and nobility, and for which there were serious penalties for unauthrised entry. The derivation is from the pre 10th century French word "parc" introduced into England and Scotland after the Norman-French invasion of 1066. The keeper of the park was a position of great status and trust, and such keepers had considerable powers of arrest and punishment...