He was the son of John Edward Parsons, a former president of the New York City Bar Association, and Mary Dumesnil McIlvaine.

A 1910 run for reelection to the Sixty-second Congress was unsuccessful, and Parsons resumed the practice of law in New York City.

Parsons was married to Elsie Worthington Clews, an anthropologist and folklorist of the indigenous people of the American Southwest.

Through his eldest daughter Elsie, he was a grandfather of Herbert Parsons Patterson (1925–1985),[5] who became president of the Chase Manhattan Bank in 1968.

[6][7] This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress