4 Aug 2014
Donna Schrock Birkey
Contents
Introduction
The names found on this website represent the fabric and fiber of the history of my Schrock, Park, Birkey and Zehr families. They are surnames of two different communities--mostly Anabaptists and English dissidents, with a few revolutionaries thrown in as counterpoint.

The Anabaptist history of faith in God, quiet, simple living, and non-violent, peaceful attitudes have shaped the majority. The Swiss German Birki, Zehr, and Schrag families came to Illinois mostly from Alsace-Lorraine and Bavaria, after fleeing their native Switzerland following the Protestant Reformation.

Celebrated farmers in Europe, these former owners or leaseholders of large estates found the rich farmland of the central U.S. very attractive. After difficult periods of pioneering, most turned their acreage into profitable farms. Other immigrants had been millers and weavers. All sought freedom to worship God without consequence and practice their faith as they believed the Bible taught. Their unwillingness to participate in war was another factor moving many families from Napoleonic France to America.

The dissenters and revolutionaries started their trek to America from the north of England, along the border with Scotland--Northumberland, Cumberland, Lancashire. The immigrant Roger Parke was a "dissident" while still in England, leaving the Church of England to become a Quaker. The allied Mills family members were well-established Quakers connected to the Hopewell Meeting House--the first Quaker meeting established in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Arriving in America in the 1600s, these English immigrants took part in the forming of the nation, the Revolutionary War, and the movement west through Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky to Missouri. They were land owners and farmers, and in a few cases, slave owners.

Varied as they were, we respect those who have gone before--learning from their mistakes and successes in order to leave a solid legacy for generations to follow.
Contact