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Prussia was the true melting pot of Europe and, in that sense, the Parkes family can be considered a typical Prussian family: it is represented by refugees, most probably Protestant, or to be more exact, Reformed or Calvinist, from Lithuania, England, France, and Austria.

Most of the somewhat inexact data concerning the Praikschatis family (Americanized version: Praikshatis) - - Praikschatis was the family name until my father changed it around 1934 when he became a businessman - - is from an older gentleman who overheard me talking in a small wine tavern in Goettingen, the "Badische Winzerstube" (Badensian Wine-Grower's Tavern) where I studied. Once a month, four friends and I would repair there for an evening of "Bocksbeutel" (goat's scrotum), a white, full-bodied, vigorous, earthy, robust dry wine from the Franconian region whose capital is Wuerzburg. The elderly gentleman, Boenke by name, had been discharged from the German Army in 1929 because of a serious heart condition. In November 1963, when we met in the inn, he was still going strong.

Herr Boenke had grown up in East Prussia, where our family came from, on the Lithuanian border. He had gone to school with someone named Praikschatis and subsequently he researched our family name and sent me pages of information.

The family name is Lithuanian and is derived from "preigszas" ("sz" is pronounced sh or sch) which means someone who is either courting a woman to marry her, or is a matchmaker. "-atis" means "son of." In the German-speaking area there are over 330 dialects and thus many variations in names. Originally, the name around 1500 would have been written Preugszas or Preugschatis. In German, when a word or a syllable ends in a "g," it is pronounced "k," thus Praik-schatis.

Lithuanians began immigrating in large numbers to East Prussia, on the other side of the border, around 1500. Prussia encouraged this because the area was a wilderness and it wanted the Lithuanians to clear the land and become peasants there. Being a peasant did not automatically mean that one was poor. In the Middle Ages, there was no money to speak of; wealth and power was measured in land and this area in Eastern Europe was still quite medieval. At one time, this area was called "Prussian Lithuania;" it was never Lithuanian, but more Lithuanian speakers lived there than German speakers.

The Lithuanians, Latvians, and Prussians were not Germanic or Slavic, but Baltic with their own distinctive Indo-European language branch. In 1230 the Order of the Teutonic Knights appeared in Prussia to Christianize the populace: either you became Christian or you were killed. In 1283, the Teutonic Knights were the undisputed masters there. In the process, Prussian disappeared as an official language and German took its place. I can imagine though that it still survived for centuries and that Lithuanian farm folk would have had no difficulties understanding and speaking Prussian.

Since the end of World War II, East Prussia has been Russian. Today, it is the westernmost member of the Russian Federation and is called the Kaliningrad Oblast (Administrative District). Its capital, formerly the German Koenigsberg where the philosopher Emanuel Kant was born, lived, and taught is called Kaliningrad today. The areas in East Prussia where Herr Boenke found the names Preugszas or Preugschatis were Gumbinnen (Ger.) Gusev in Russian; Dauden (name unchanged), a village in the parish of Kussen; Tilsit - I think it's Lithuanian today; Gruenrode, Ger. (Orupoenen, Lith.); Grueneichen, Ger. (Baltruschehlen, Lith.); Baerenhoefen, Ger. (Meschkuppen, Lith.); Ragnit, Ger.; Ebenrode, Ger.; and Insterburg, Ger.

The fact that the family was Reformed and not Lutheran is significant. By decree, in 1525 all East Prussians became Lutheran. English Calvinists or Reformed found refuge in East Prussia. Also, French Protestants, called Huguenots, who were Calvinist, fled to Prussia by the thousands, especially after the abolition of the Edict of Nantes in France in 1685, taking away all rights of the Huguenots and expelling them from France. In 1700, for instance, every sixth Berliner was a French speaker. This might explain the English and French descendants who married members of the Praikschatis family. In 1731/32, all Protestants were forced to leave the Austrian province of Salzburg. They however were strict Lutherans. Herr Boenke noted that my great grandfather Louis' second wife bore the surname Donnenberger, which is a typical name for Salzburg. He also commented that the Austrian Lutherans were settled in the "Lithuanian" area of East Prussia because one half of the population was wiped out by the plague in 1709/11. French Swiss Calvinists were also settled there.

Herr Boenke sees Gumbinnen, in the county of Schlossberg (Pillkallen, Lith), as being an indication that the Praikschatis family came from this area since many Reformed were settled there. He also considers the village of Dauden to be a possibility because of the name "John" in its various forms (Jons, Lith., Johann, Hans). Formerly, families passed on a first name from one generation to another. In the parish records of Kussen, where Dauden is located, Herr Boenke found the following names: Jons Preugszas and Hans (German form of "John") Preugszas.