The primary purpose of this site is to make available a family tree of thousands of the descendants of William Sparks who migrated from Fareham Parish, Hampshire, England, to Maryland in about 1663. Allied families are Stone, Jenkins, Payne, Mattingly, Spalding, Pigott, Boarman, Cole, Brooke, and Gardiner. William Sparks was born about 1640, migrated to Maryland and, by 1672, he had purchased land in what was then Talbot County, now Queen Anne's County. His primary plantation was located "on the east side of Chester River near the head of a small branch of Island Creek."  On a current map of Queen Anne's County, this can be found a few miles southwest of Church Hill, Maryland. William Sr.'s son William Jr., remained in Queen Anne's County but by 1736 William Jr.'s son, William Sample Sparks, had migrated west to what was to become Frederick County. In about the spring of 1754, William Sample Sparks, his sons and some of his cousins moved to "The Forks of the Yadkin" in northwestern North Carolina.  From there came the descendants of most of the people found on this web site. Thousands of members of this branch of the Sparks family spread throughout the south, midwest and west where their descendants are found today.

The Sparks Family Tree portion of this web site contains tools which will enable you to search for any individual on the site, to locate his or her immediate and extended family, and to print out a family group sheet, a descendancy chart, or an ancestor chart. You can also cut and paste any notes which are included on the site. Reference is made to THE SPARKS QUARTERLY throughout the notes. Citations are provided in each note to the article or articles in the QUARTERLY from which the information in the notes was derived.

How to Use the Family Tree Site

After clicking on the link at the end of this section, click on the work JUMP in the lower left--hand corner of the screen.  This brings up the SURNAME LIST.   In the white window enter the surname of the subject and  click on "Search."  The surname appears to the left of a black line.  (You may have to scroll up or down a bit here.)  Double click on the black line.   In the white window which then appears, enter the full name of the subject, last name, comma, first name.  Click on "SEARCH." Next appears the FULL NAME LIST with the name of the subject person next to another black line.  Double click on the black line and the "home page" for that person is displayed.  You will see additional information including the names of his or her parents, spouse and children.  Some names will include NOTES.   By clicking on the names of parents or children, you can move backwards or forward in time through their family tree.  The following options are also available by striking the "JUMP" key after your named person has been selected:
        FULL NAME LIST:  Contains the full name of everyone in the database.
        SURNAME LIST:  Contains all of the surnames in the database.  
        SOUNDEX LIST:  Assigns the proper Soundex number to each name and groups all names with that number.  
        FAMILY GROUP:   Shows the grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren of the named subject.  
        ANCESTOR CHART:  Lists all direct ancestors of the named subject.
        DESCENDANT CHART:  Lists all of the direct descendants of the named subject.

 If your ancestor has a common name, be prepared to find scores of people with the same name. If a less common spousal name is known consider searching under that name first. 

The Sparks Family Association was begun in March, 1953, by the late Dr. Paul E. Sparks, a descendant of William Sr. through his son Joseph, and by the the late Dr. Russell Bidlack whose late wife, Melva, was a descendant of William Sr., through his son William Jr. For  50 years they published THE SPARKS QUARTERLY, each issue originally being 12 pages in length, the last issue being 38 pages long.  Sadly,  Dr. Bidlack died as he was preparing the 200th issue of THE QUARTERLY and it was published by his children.  The Bidlack family also made funds available to support THE SPARKS QUARTERLY website's maintenance costs for several years.  There are 5,780 pages of Sparks data in THE SPARKS QUARTERLY including hundreds of photographs, maps, charts, census records, birth, death, marriage, and other records.

NOTICE

THE ENTIRE SPARKS QUARTERLY IS NOW ON LINE

Using the SPARKS FAMILY TREE website and the SPARKS QUARTERLY website in conjunction with each other will be most useful to descendants of William Sparks (d.1709). For example, identify an ancestor on the SPARKS QUARTERLY site and easily trace his/her ancestors and descendants on the SPARKS FAMILY TREE site.  Originally open to members of the Sparks Family Association, the site is now available to anyone on making a one-time payment of $5 to defray the cost of maintaining the site on line so long as funds are available.  To get further information or to visit the SPARKS QUARTERLY website, or to obtain information on how to access the website of Harold Sparks,

 CLICK HERE

This web site was created by James J. Sparks, J. D.  He may be emailed at jjsparks1@comcast.net.    Corrections, comments, and, especially, additions to the site are welcome, as are requests for assistance using the site.    As is stated elsewhere, all information known about the persons included in  Sparks Family Tree is on the web site.   Please do not write asking for additional information about the people named.