Memetic algorithms (MA) are evolutionary computation methods that employ local search to selected individuals of the population. This work presents global-local population MA for solving the forward kinematics of parallel manipulators. A real-coded generation algorithm with features of diversity is used in the global population and an evolutionary algorithm with parent-centric crossover operator which has local search features is used in the local population. The forward kinematics of the 3RPR and 6-6 leg manipulators are examined to test the performance of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method improves the performance of the real-coded genetic algorithm and can obtain highquality solutions similar to the previous methods for the 6-6 leg manipulator. The accuracy of the solutions and the optimisation time achieved by the methods in this work motivates for real-time implementation of the 3RPR parallel manipulator.