Excerpt from The Perkins Family in Ye Olden Times: The Contents of a Series of Letters by the Late Mansfield Parkyns
Introductory
Dear Mr. Perkins:
Nearly forty years ago Twas fond of historical genealogy and afterwards, when living in London, occupied some of my little spare time in hunting up matters and persons interesting in our early English history, from old records, etc. I never touched family genealogy except to assist a friend or a genealogist, but during thirty years I must have written a good many letters to various persons about various families, and I think I must have read some hundreds of Perkins wills. I do not remember children"s names, etc. I had no clue of that sort.
I should be pleased to know your present object. If you wish to make a general collection I might find you a few things among my heaps of manuscripts of all dates, in various languages, and on nearly all subjects, and you might possibly in such a collection light upon an additional clue. Your notes will very likely refresh my memory and assist me to make out the meaning of memoranda scribbled on all sorts of documents on various subjects and which I cannot myself make out now.
I helped Col. Chester in his search for Perkins and some other names, and I have all (I believe) of the known Perkins and Parkyns pedigrees with additions from wills, etc., and I am now working them up for Miss Sharp. Col. Chester also had them all; and if he could not express any decided opinion then I need not say that with the rust of so many years on my memory, it is not likely that I could express any opinion now, except what is founded on what appears in your notes and letters and in Dr. George A. Perkins" Genealogy.
I once thought of collecting every Perkins item I met down to 1700, for the benefit of "our American cousins," but I had not time, and most of what I did has, in the last sixteen or eighteen years, gone into the hands of various friends and one great enemy - "Time" - the devourer of all things.
I wish I had preserved my notes of other matters for your sake, but I never did anything for myself and so, with these few exceptions, all that I had were given away as soon as made.
Your remark as to my probable knowledge of the position occupied two or three centuries ago by representatives of the family suggests that you do not fully realize the number of persons of the name then in England: about (say) A.D. 1600, you would find them in nearly every (untitled) position, profession, or trade - down to the lowest. In the lottery of life, as in all lotteries, there are many blanks, a good number of small prizes, and but few very great ones; and so it is with our namesakes.
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