Part 1: The Society of Mayflower Descendants: Who they are, where to find them, how to apply

Alicia Crane Williams

Of all the names of the many ships that came to the new world, Mayflower is easily the most recognized, and the Pilgrims who came to New England on the ship Mayflower are among the most celebrated of American immigrants. Descent from a Mayflower passenger – one of the “first comers” – has long been considered a matter of pride. Today there may be as many as twenty to thirty million descendants of these Pilgrims; 26,500 of whom are currently members of the Mayflower Society.

The General Society of Mayflower Descendants, established in 1897, is the national organization of descendants of the passengers of the ship Mayflower that arrived in Plymouth, New England, in 1620 (note, there was no second voyage). Of the 102 passengers on board, there are twenty-six heads of families who have descendants (listed on the Society’s website http://www.mayflower.org/) recognized for membership in the Mayflower Society. The head of family represents his spouse and children who also came on the ship. For example, you may join the Society under the head of family, William Mullins, who also represents his wife Alice, son Joseph, and daughter Priscilla Mullins (who married passenger John Alden); or you may join under John Alden, who also represents his wife Priscilla Mullins. An individual with more than one Mayflower head of family may file supplemental lineages after the initial application is completed.

Individuals join one of the fifty-two “state” societies (including the District of Columbia and the Dominion of Canada) that make up the General Society. Each sets its own fees and dues, so cost of membership will vary. You may join any state society regardless of residence, although for obvious reasons joining the state where you live provides more opportunities to participate in activities. You may also have dual memberships in two or more state societies, and annual memberships may be transferred to another state (life memberships cannot be transferred). Contact information for each state society is available on the website.

Each state society also has its own schedule of events. The Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, for example, holds three state-wide events each year: an annual meeting in the spring, a “Peregrination to Plymouth” in June, and a “Compact Day” meeting in the fall. Most societies hold Compact Day meetings to celebrate the signing of the famous “Mayflower Compact” (the contract that established how the new colony would be governed, necessitated by their having landed outside the bounds of their legal grant). Some state societies have scholarship programs for their members, such as the Massachusetts society, which also annually awards a scholarship to descendants of the Wampanoag tribe. Societies also publish newsletters for their membership, distribute educational material to schools, and have other projects. The Massachusetts Society publishes the scholarly genealogical magazine The Mayflower Descendant, and the New York Society holds an annual debutante ball for the benefit of their educational programs.

All members receive The Mayflower Quarterly, the publication of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, which includes news about the national organization, state societies, photographs, and historical and genealogical articles.

The General Society also researches and publishes the series Mayflower Families Through Five Generations and Mayflower Families in Progress, as well as various other books, including the vital records of Dennis and Raynham, Massachusetts (see the website under “Books, Insignia, and Educational Materials” for details on the available books). The Mayflower Families project has been ongoing for more than forty years with the goal of thoroughly researching and documenting the first five generations of descendants of all Mayflower passengers. . New editions of all of these volumes are published as needed to reflect updated research, so it is important to pay attention to the edition when citing these works.

The first step in joining the Mayflower Society is to contact the state and request a Preliminary Application. You will receive information about the membership categories, requirements, application fees, and dues of that state organization. In Massachusetts, Annual and Life memberships are open to descendants who are eighteen years of age or older and Minor Life memberships are for all descendants under age eighteen. Some state societies have Junior memberships for children.

The preliminary package will also include a “synopsis” form with instructions to fill in the names in your direct line of descent from the Mayflower passenger you wish to join under (no details or documentation are required at this point). The State Historian will use the synopsis to determine how much of your line has previously been filed and documented by the Society. A printable synopsis is available on the website under “Proposed Application Review Form.”

When your Preliminary Application, synopsis, and payment for the type of membership you want are received, the State Historian will send a worksheet lineage paper and instruction sheets. The worksheet will be filled in with the information that has already been documented and the instructions will tell you how to complete the rest of the paper and what documents are acceptable as proof for the line.

The lineage paper has three columns: place, date, reference. For each generation, the place anddate of birth, marriage, and death must be filled in (if known) for both the line carrier and the spouse, and citations to documentation supporting each event must be listed in the reference column on the same line as the event.

Primary documentation – birth, marriage, death certificates, Bibles, wills, deeds, census, etc. (records that were made at the time of the event or by a reliable witness to the event) – is preferred whenever possible. Secondary documentation – published genealogies, histories, transcriptions, etc. – may be used (with some restrictions). Published genealogies that cite the sources for their information are preferred over those that give no sources. Unpublished typescripts and manuscripts are not acceptable (although, if they contain unique information relevant to the line, they may be submitted for informational use). The last three generations on each lineage paper must be fully documented with birth, marriage, and (as appropriate) death records for the line carrier (the applicant, applicant’s parents, and applicant’s grandparents). For

the earlier generations, the rule of thumb is “the more primary documentation the better.” References to the Mayflower books noted above may be used for the first five generations on each lineage paper descending from a passenger who has been published (at this writing, all of the passengers, except John Howland, have been covered in one or the other of these series).When you have filled in your worksheet and collected your documents, you will send the worksheet and the copies of documents to the State Historian for review. If you are asked to send original documents in addition to copies, the originals will be returned to you after they have been examined. The State Historian will contact you if there are questions or if more documentation is needed.

When the State Historian is satisfied that your worksheet and documentation are complete, it will be time to prepare final lineage papers. Some states will do this for you; other states will send the forms for you to type. After your signed papers are received, the State Historian will sign and forward the papers and documents to the Historian General’s office in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where everything will be reviewed again by the Historian General and assistants. Should there be further questions, the Historian General will contact the State Historian, who will pass the questions on to you – all correspondence is channeled through the state; applicants do not contact the Historian General directly.

If the Historian General is satisfied the line is confirmed, the paper will be approved and returned to the state and you will be elected to membership. Both a State Society number and a General Society number are assigned to the paper, and finally, a photocopy of the signed and approved paper is sent to you for your files. If other members of your family wish to join the Mayflower Society using your file, they should refer to your State and General Society numbers. They will not have to duplicate the documents you have already filed.

Occasionally, a child, grandchild, or near relative of a former member of the Mayflower Society wishes to join, but is told that the lineage papers on file were not properly documented and the new applicant must now provide the missing proof. This unfortunate situation has several causes. First, documentation standards throughout the genealogical world have drastically changed in the last thirty years. Some sources that were accepted a hundred years ago are no longer acceptable. New sources are now available or are more readily accessed. Second, the General Society offices suffered a fire in 1947 that destroyed or damaged many lineage files. Some of these files were replaced from state copies, but much could not be replaced. Finally, the most egregious old practice was not requiring any documentation at all for the last three generations on each lineage paper. Therefore, a lineage filed by a child of the original member would have four undocumented generations; a lineage filed by a grandchild would have five undocumented generations; a lineage filed by a great grandchild would have six, and so forth! By the 1970s there were lineage papers in the Society’s files that had as many as eight undocumented generations.

Documentation standards today are more stringent and emphasis is placed on primary records or good secondary sources. In future columns we will explore the sources available for Mayflower genealogy and discuss the best practices to assure acceptance of your Mayflower application.

For more information on the history of the ship Mayflower and her passengers, see http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/.

Part II: Who Came on the Mayflower: Separating the Facts from the Myths

Alicia Crane Williams

If all the people who have been claimed to have come on the Mayflower to New England in 1620 actually had come on that boat, it would have sunk mid-Atlantic. Likewise, all the ink used to write about the ship and her passengers in the succeeding 385 years could have floated her back to England. A great deal of what has been written is mistaken, imaginary, or outright fraudulent. So how do you know what is correct?

The best place to start is Caleb Johnson’s website, http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/, which contains a list of all of the Mayflower’s passengers and what is known about them, whether they had descendants, transcriptions of books and documents (many of them written by the Pilgrims) pertaining to both the ship and passengers, and much more. If you don’t see a person on this site, they didn’t come on the Mayflower.

When the Mayflower left England she had 102 passengers. During the voyage, one passenger died (William Butten), and one baby was born (Oceanus Hopkins); thus, 102 passengers landed in New England (although it should be noted at least two other pregnant women made the voyage – Susanna White who gave birth to Peregrine White, the first European child born in New England, shortly after arriving at Cape Cod, and Mary Allerton who died in February, a few days after giving birth to a stillborn son). During the first year in Plymouth Colony, half of the passengers died.

Of these 102 passengers, the Mayflower Society recognizes 26 heads of families who have proved descendants. For the purposes of membership in the Mayflower Society, wives and children who also came on the Mayflower are grouped under the head of family:

John Alden, also representing Mayflower passenger (hereinafter MP) Priscilla Mullins (daughter of William Mullins) whom he later married. John and Priscilla had ten children born in Plymouth and Duxbury, eight of whom had descendants (Elizabeth, John, Joseph, Jonathan, Ruth, Sarah, Rebecca, and David).

Isaac Allerton, representing MPs first wife Mary, son Bartholomew, and daughters Remember and Mary. Isaac’s wife Mary died after giving birth to a stillborn son in February 1621. He remarried, to Fear Brewster (a daughter of MP William Brewster, who was not herself on the Mayflower), and later had a third wife. Bartholomew returned to England, where he married and had children, although nothing is known about further descendants. Daughters Remember and Mary both married and left descendants.

John Billington, representing MPs wife Elinor and sons John and Francis. All survived; however, the older John Billington, who had a history of troublemaking, became the first man to be hanged in the colony. Only son Francis left descendants.

William Bradford, representing MP first wife Dorothy who died in December 1620. Their only child, John, left behind in Holland, came to New England later. He married,

but left no children. William remarried, to widow Alice (Carpenter) Southworth, and had three more children (William, Mercy, and Joseph), all of whom left descendants.

William Brewster, representing MPs wife Mary and sons Love and Wrestling, who all survived. Left behind were son Jonathan and daughters Patience and Fear, who came later. All but Wrestling left descendants. Fear married MP Isaac Allerton as his second wife.

Peter Brown came alone, later married twice and had four children, three of whom –Mary, Priscilla, and Rebecca – left descendants.

James Chilton, representing MPs wife Susanna and daughter Mary. James died in December 1620 and Susanna in January 1621. James and Susanna had ten children in total, but besides Mary, only their eldest daughter, Isabella (who came to New England later), survived. Both Isabella and Mary left descendants.

Francis Cooke, representing MP son John. His wife Hester and three other children remained behind and came to Plymouth on the ship Anne in August 1623. Francis and Hester had two more children born in Plymouth. Five of their children (Jane, John, Jacob, Hester, and Mary) left descendants.

Edward Doty came as a servant to Stephen Hopkins. He married twice and had nine children by his second wife (Edward, John, Thomas, Samuel, Desire, Elizabeth, Isaac, Joseph, and Mary), all of whom left descendants.

Francis Eaton, representing MPs wife Sarah and son Samuel. Samuel survived to have descendants. Sarah died in the first winter and Francis remarried twice. By his third wife, Christian Penn, he had three children, two of whom (Rachel and Benjamin), left descendants.

Moses Fletcher came alone and returned to Holland. He married twice and at his death left ten children, thirteen grandchildren, and twenty great-grandchildren, all in Holland. One line of descent has been accepted by the Mayflower Society.

Edward Fuller, representing MPs wife, name unknown, and son Samuel. Edward’s wife died in January 1621. Their older son Matthew had remained in England, but came to the colony later. Both Matthew and Samuel left descendants. Edward was the brother of MPSamuel Fuller.

Samuel Fuller, brother of MP Edward Fuller, Samuel left his third wife, Bridget Lee, and their son Samuel behind in Holland (he had three children by his second wife, Agnes Carpenter, who died without issue). Samuel, Jr., later came to New England and left descendants.

Stephen Hopkins, representing MPs second wife Elizabeth, sons Giles and Oceanus, and daughters Constance and Damaris. Constance and Giles were by Stephen’s first wife and both survived to leave descendants. Stephen and Elizabeth’s children Damaris and Oceanus who were on the Mayflower both died young, but the couple had five more children born in Plymouth. Of these, only two daughters, Deborah and another Damaris, left descendants.

John Howland, representing MP (later wife) Elizabeth Tilley, daughter of John Tilley. John and Elizabeth had ten children (Desire, John, Hope, Elizabeth, Lydia, Hannah, Joseph, Jabez, Ruth, and Isaac), all of whom left descendants.

Richard More came as a child with his three siblings, Jasper, Ellen, and Mary, who all died in the first winter. Richard married twice and had seven children by his first wife, but only three (Richard, Susanna, and Christian) are known to have had children. Of

these, only Susanna has known descendants. The More children are the only MPs with proved royal ancestry.

William Mullins, representing MPs wife Alice, daughter Priscilla (who later married John Alden), and son Joseph. William, Alice and Joseph all died in the first year. Although William Mullins also had a son and daughter who remained in England, all of his known descendants are through Priscilla. The claim of Huguenot ancestry for William Mullins is a myth.

Degory Priest came alone leaving behind his wife Sarah (a sister of MP Isaac Allerton) and two daughters, Mary and Sarah. He died in the first winter, but Sarah and the girls came to New England later. Both girls married and left descendants.

Thomas Rogers, representing MP son Joseph Rogers. Thomas died in the winter of 1620/21. His wife had stayed behind with three other surviving children (two others had died). Joseph survived and he and his brother John have proved descendants. Two sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret, may have married and had issue, but this has not been authenticated.

Henry Samson was a child who came with his cousins Edward and Ann Tilley. He married and had nine children born in Duxbury, eight of whom left descendants (Elizabeth, Hannah, a daughter [name unknown], Mary, Dorcas, James, Stephen, and Caleb).

George Soule came alone as a servant of Edward Winslow. He married in Plymouth and had nine children, seven of whom had descendants.

Myles Standish, representing MP first wife Rose, who died in January 1621. Myles remarried and had seven children, three of whom (Alexander, Myles, and Josiah) left descendants.

John Tilley, representing MPs wife Joan and their youngest daughter Elizabeth (who later married John Howland). John and Joan died in the first year. In 1999 the Mayflower Society also accepted a line through John Tilley’s son Robert, who remained in England.

Richard Warren came alone leaving his wife Elizabeth and five daughters in England. Elizabeth and the girls came later and the Warrens had two sons born in Plymouth. All seven of the Warren children (Mary, Anna, Sarah, Elizabeth, Abigail, Nathaniel, and Joseph) left descendants. Claims of royal ancestry for Richard Warren are unfounded.

William White, representing MPs wife Susanna and sons Resolved and Peregrine. William died in February 1621. Susanna remarried, to MP Edward Winslow (see below). Both Resolved and Peregrine White left descendants.

Edward Winslow, representing MPs first wife Elizabeth and second wife Susanna, widow of William White. Edward’s first wife died soon after landing in Plymouth and his marriage to the widow Susanna White in May 1621 was the first marriage in the new colony. He became stepfather to Susanna’s two boys, Resolved and baby Peregrine White, and he and Susanna had five children born in Plymouth. Only two, Josiah and Elizabeth, had descendants.

The Mayflower Society has published books detailing the first four or five generations of most of these 26 families, which we will discuss in the next installment of this series. The list of books is available on http://www.mayflower.org/.

For the original, first-hand account of the voyage of the Mayflower and the early history of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation is a must read, and Samuel Eliot Morrison’s edition of that work is the most readable. Another interesting work, Mourt’s Relation, A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, was written by the first settlers as an enticement to bring more people to the colony. A modern compilation that gives details on all of the early colonists is Eugene Aubrey Stratton’s Plymouth Colony, Its History & People 1620-1691 (information for all of the above and other books about the Pilgrims can be found on http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/), and Robert Charles Anderson’s new work published by NEHGS, The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620-1633 (updated sketches from his larger series The Great Migration Begins) provides everything you need to know about any immigrant to Plymouth Colony before 1634.

The story of the Mayflower and her passengers was romanticized in the nineteenth century by such people as orator Daniel Webster and poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (author of the famous poem "Courtship of Myles Standish" that told the story of how Priscilla Mullins was wooed by both Standish and John Alden). Fanciful and romantic novels were written putting words into the mouths of the Pilgrims and describing imaginary details of their lives. Often these imaginary details found their way into so-called historical accounts. As the prestige of descent from a Mayflower passenger rose, the rush to find an ancestor on that boat led some to ignore good genealogical sources or even to make up connections that were never there. Since many of the surnames of the MPs are fairly common, some people have jumped to unfounded conclusions. For example, although there were two men on the Mayflower named Clarke –Richard, a passenger, and John the mate – neither man left descendants.[1] The Clarke family of Plymouth traces to Thomas Clarke, who came on the ship Anne in 1623.

Many of these imaginary Mayflower connections can still be found in print and have unfortunately been disseminated throughout the Internet, but only individuals on the above list are proved passengers of the ship Mayflower. Further information about the ship, passengers, and settlement in Plymouth Colony can be found on the websites of Pilgrim Hall (http://www.pilgrimhall.org/) and Plimoth Plantation (http://www.plimoth.org/).

NOTE:[1] The crew of the Mayflower, perhaps as many as 25-30 men, are mostly unidentified and (other than Captain Christopher Jones) no family information is known about them. Only descent from a passenger qualifies for membership in the Mayflower Society.

Researching Your Mayflower Ancestors: Part III: Published Sources: Mayflower Families Through Five Generations and other books published by the Mayflower Society

Alicia Crane Williams

Documenting families and proving lineages has always been a serious impediment to membership growth in hereditary societies. The first documented publication of Mayflower-related families was begun in 1899 by George Ernest Bowman of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants when he created the periodical, The Mayflower Descendant (hereinafter MD), which quickly became an industry standard (and is still being published today). However, the periodical format can only present bits and pieces in random articles, rather than complete family accounts.

In the 1930s the General Society of Mayflower Descendants published a volume (updated in the 1950s to two volumes, and a third series was begun in 1980 but never completed) titled Mayflower Index (hereinafter MI), which presented an alphabetic listing of names of Mayflower descendants and their spouses linked by a numbering system that allowed the reader to follow backward from any individual to the Mayflower ancestor. The names in the MI were taken from the lineage papers of the society with the implication that the lineages were acceptable and documented, despite the Society’s then practice of “grandfathering” papers – no documentation was required for the most recent three generations of each lineage. The MI, itself, gives no documentation or even dates of birth, marriage, or death, and the numbering system is often confused with the numbering system of the lineage papers (each of which is assigned a General Society number and a State Society number). Despite appearances, it is not possible to take the numbers from the MI and directly locate the lineage papers relevant to the individuals in the book.

In 1960 the concept of a documented genealogy on each of the Mayflower families was developed into what became known as the “Five Generations Project” (hereinafter “5G”). “Prime Researchers” were chosen for each of the families and given the responsibility of documenting and writing a complete genealogy on the first five generations of descendants (with the birth of the sixth), which would then be edited and published. These books would contain complete and accurate information on each family and relieve applicants of the need to document the first five generations of their lineage papers.

It took fifteen years to produce the first volume in the series, and today, 45 years later, the series is still incomplete, although something has been published on each family. The overwhelming size of the project led to a revamping in the 1980s. Initially, the books were all published in hard cover (in a silver color, thus the books are referred to as the “silver books”) called Mayflower Families Through Five Generations (hereinafter MF), but the expense of hard cover publication and the need to publish frequent updates and additions led to a series of paper cover books (in pink, referred to as the “pink pamphlets”) called Mayflower Families in Progress (hereinafter MFIP). The MFIP volumes allowed the authors and editors to publish “as is” versions of the genealogies and receive feedback, updates and corrections before publishing the more final

version in hard cover, although revised editions of the hard cover books have also been done. Further confusion is caused by the fact that each Prime Researcher was allowed to present their family in a manner of their choosing (resulting, for example, in some multi-volume families being divided by child, others by generation). The combined result is a headache for researchers trying to wend their way through the various editions and volumes of silver and pink books.

In addition, in recent years the MFIP series has been expanded to include families whose original immigrant did not come on the Mayflower, but who married (or had children or grandchildren marry) a Mayflower passenger – Robert Bartlett, Richard Church, Philip Delano. Several works of vital records or other source material have also been published.

To make a long story short, we will list the current publications for each Mayflower family. You may find citations to these works on Mayflower lineage papers and in other publications that may refer to earlier editions and therefore may need to refer to the index of the version in hand when using these volumes (and remember that frequent new editions will make the current citations obsolete in turn). Another quirk is that the society uses page numbers when citing from the MF books, but numbers of individuals when citing from the MFIP pamphlets. All of these books are available from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, P.O. Box 3927, Plymouth, MA 02361; www.mayflower.org.

AldenMF 16, Part 1, second printing with addenda and errata, 2002: first four generations of all children of John Alden MF 16, Part 2, 2002: fifth generation of daughter Elizabeth (Alden) Pabodie, includes addenda and errata to Part 1 MF 16, Part 3, 2004: fifth generation of sons John, Jr., Joseph, and Jonathan, includes addenda and errata to Parts 1 and 2[Part 4, scheduled for release in 2006, will contain the fifth generation of daughter Ruth (Alden) Bass, and Part 5 will contain the fifth generation of daughter Rebecca and son David; descendants of Sarah (Alden) Standish are covered under the Standish family.]

AllertonMF 17, 1998: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

Robert Bartlett of the AnneMFIP, 2nd ed., 2000: four generations; Robert Bartlett married Mary, daughter of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren, so this pamphlet duplicates information in MF 18, Part 1 and 2 (see Warren, below), but provides an individual volume on the Bartlett branch of the Warren family.

BillingtonMF 21, 2001: five generations; supersedes earlier version published in MF 5 (with Winslow)

BradfordMF 22, 2004: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

BrewsterMFIP, 3rd ed. 2000: four generationsMFIP, 1999: Jonathan2 fifth generation descendants

MFIP, 2001: Patience2 fifth generation descendantsMFIP, 2003, Love2 fifth generation descendants

BrownMF 7, 2nd ed., 2002: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

ChiltonMF 15, 1997 (with More): five generations; supersedes earlier version published in MF 2.

Richard ChurchMFIP,1998: four generations; Richard Church married Elizabeth, daughter of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren, so this pamphlet duplicates information in MF 18, Parts 1 and 2 (see Warren, below), but provides an individual volume on the Church branch of Warren descendants.

CookeMF 12, revised ed. 1999: five generationsMFIP, 5th ed., 2000: four generations updates the MF volume above.

Philip Delano of the FortuneMFIP, 2002: four generationsMFIP, Part 1, 5th and 6th generations, 2004: (family numbers 198-367)

DotyMF 11, Part 1, 1996: five generations through Edward2 and John2MF 11, Part 2, 1996: five generations through Thomas,2 Samuel,2 Desire,2 and Elizabeth2MF 11, Part 3, 2000: five generations through Isaac,2 Joseph,2 and Mary2all supersede earlier MFIP editions

EatonMF 9, 1996: five generations, supersedes earlier version in MF 1.

Edward FullerMF 4, 2nd ed., 1995: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

Samuel FullerMF 10, 1996: five generations, supersedes earlier version in MF 1.

HopkinsMF 6, 3rd ed., 2001: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

HowlandMF 23, 2005: New – first four generations of all Howland children. This is the first volume on the Howland family to be produced by the General Society. Previously, two volumes were independently produced by Elizabeth Pearson White and published by Picton Press: John Howland of the Mayflower, Volume 1 through Desire2 Howland and Volume 2 through John2

Howland, both of which are available through the Mayflower Society.

MoreMF 15 (with Chilton), 1997: five generations; supersedes earlier version in MF 2.

PriestMF 8, 1994: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

RogersMF 19, 2000: five generations; supersedes earlier version in MF 2

SamsonMF 20, Part 1, 2000: first four generations of all Samson children; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.MF 20, Part 2, 2005: fifth generation descendants of son James2 Samson and daughters Dorcas (Samson) Bonney, ---- (Samson) Hanmore, Hannah (Samson) Holmes, and Elizabeth (Samson) Sprout

SouleMFIP, 4th ed. 2002: four generations supersedes MF 3 for these generationsMFIP, Part 1, 5th and 6th generations, 2000: (numbers 230-349), supersedes MF 3 for these familiesMFIP, Part 2, 5th and 6th generations, 2002: (numbers 350-464), supersedes MF 3 for these familiesMFIP, Part 3, 5th and 6th generations, 2003: (numbers 465-551), supersedes MF 3 for these familiesMF 3, 1980: five generations, but has been superseded through page 238 by all of the above, and future MFIP pamphlets will eventually completely replace the MF 3 volume.

StandishMF 14, 1997: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

WarrenMF 18, Part 1, 3rd ed., 2004: four generations of all Warren children; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.MF 18, Part 2, 1999: fifth generation of Mary,2 Anna,2 and Elizabeth2 MF 18, Part 3, 2001: fifth generation of Abigail,2 Nathaniel2, and Joseph2

WhiteMF 13, 2nd ed., 2002: five generations; supersedes earlier version in MF 1.

WinslowMF 5, 2nd ed., 1997 (with John Billington): five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.

There is inevitable “cross over” among these volumes where descendants of two passengers have married but their descendants may be continued only in one volume. For example, Myles

Standish’s granddaughter, Sarah Standish, married Benjamin Soule, a grandson of passenger George Soule. The Soule descendants are continued in the Soule MF and MFIP volumes, but not in the Standish volume. On the other hand, Myles’s son Alexander Standish married John Alden’s daughter Sarah, and their descendants appear in both the Standish and Alden MF volumes (although in the Alden volume only for four generations).

Unfortunately, no master index to all volumes is available, but it is well worth the time for researchers in search of Mayflower connections to check their list of ancestors against all the individual volumes.

The scholarship published in the Mayflower “5G” volumes is the best available at the time of publication, but ongoing research may disprove or add lines, or the line may be circumstantial or suggested pending further research. The fact that any particular line appears in one of these volumes does not guarantee acceptance by the Historian General for the purposes of membership.

Researching Your Mayflower Ancestors: Part IV: Internet Research: Sorting the Good from the Bad

Alicia Crane Williams

You know the saying -- “Don’t believe everything you read.” The lure of Mayflower ancestry very often leads people astray. Fanciful, faked, or mistaken Mayflower lines have a life of their own – and the Internet spreads them around the world.

In Part II of this series, I gave the authoritative list of Mayflower passengers from whom descent can be proved for membership in the Mayflower Society (see also additions at the end of this article), and in Part III I listed the authoritative publications of the Mayflower Society on the first four or five generations of these families (see additions below). Any claims to Mayflower ancestry should always first be checked against these sources; but that still leaves many generations between a prospective member and the “Five Generations” publications. The Internet naturally provides a great opportunity to locate Mayflower connections and documentation to support them if used with appropriate caution.

Acceptable and not acceptableInformation taken from the Internet is not useable as documentation with the exception of scanned images of original documents (such as census records), scanned images (not transcriptions or abstracts) of published books, and fully identified transcriptions of primary material (such as cemetery records). Family trees, genealogies, message boards, etc., are not acceptable. Databases and indexes are not acceptable – you must obtain copies of the original records. For example, ancestry.com includes a database titled “Illinois Marriages, 1851-1900.” The database entry cannot be used as documentation but it does cite the microfilm number at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City from which the information was abstracted, which can be used to obtain a copy of the original.

Mayflower databasesUnfortunately, the Mayflower Society, itself, does not have a published database and there are very few on-line databases specifically for Mayflower families. The Alden Kindred of America has an 8-generation database on its website, www.alden.org (both the html and GEDCOM versions are also available on CD-ROM), which comes with a strong caveat that it represents an index only to names that have been collected from many sources, only a fraction of which are documented in the database. Some of the information taken from lineage papers of the Alden Kindred is documented, but other information may be waiting for documentation in the ongoing “Alden Kin Search Project” dedicated to locating all Alden descendants (only 45,000 names appear in the database out of an estimated one million descendants!). Inquiries should be sent to the Alden Kindred genealogist (genealogist@alden.org) to determine the sources supporting the information in the database. An update to the database, originally published in 2003, is planned for 2006.

A similar publication for the descendants of Thomas Rogers through the sixth generation is available at http://www.tracycrocker.com/TRS/index.htm, and the Edward Doty Society’s web

page, www.edward-doty.org, includes a “lineages” section for members only. Several family organizations (Bartlett, Chilton, Francis Cooke, Delano) have databases and/or are pursuing sixth and seventh generation extensions of the Mayflower Society’s “Five Generations” project, but I have not located any other on-line databases for families of Mayflower passengers. The website of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania provides a good page of links to other Mayflower-related websites (http://www.sail1620.org/resources_links.shtml).

User submitted “trees” and message boardsThe quickest way to survey what other people have collected is to access the millions of user-submitted pedigrees, “trees,” family group sheets, etc., available on-line through such sites as www.rootsweb.com, www.ancestry.com (Ancestry World Tree, OneWorldTree), www.familysearch.org (Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource File), and www.genealogy.com (World Family Tree, Family Tree Maker Home pages)

The drawback to most user-submitted on-line trees is inadequate or non-existent documentation, repetition, and size. A large number of uploaded trees incorporate other trees previously downloaded from other on-line trees, creating a perpetual circle of duplication upon duplication of the same information (ancestry.com has 1500 entries for William Mullins with wife Alice –most incorrectly identifying her as Alice Atwood and many including the spurious claim that Mullins descends from the Molyneaux family; sources or notes are included for only 200 of these entries and most of those are merely to other trees!). Searches for common names may provide tens of thousands of “hits,” even with advanced search capabilities.

Nonetheless, even though these trees and pedigrees cannot be used as documentation, there is good information in some, which may lead to a source or specific information to aid in locating documentation. The trick is to compare what you find with other sources and track down any documentation that is cited.

Many of these sites also provide message boards where users can post questions and answers, and the regular users of these boards are often savvy advisors regarding typical pitfalls about their particular subject. Ancestry.com’s message boards (under the heading Ancestry Community) includes a board for Mayflower Descendants (under Boards>Topics>Organizations and Societies) as well as surname boards for all of the Mayflower family names.

Databases and transcriptions from “primary” sourcesDatabases derived from original material – such as vital records, probates, deeds, cemetery, etc. – are very useful, keeping in mind that the database itself is not documentation and cannot be cited as such. If a scan of the original document is not also on-line, you should obtain a copy of the original from its source.

The premier site for databases on New England locations and families is, of course, www.newenglandancestors.org. Outside of New England there are many on-line local sites such as those accessible through www.rootsweb.com, which links to state, county and town records posted by a cadre of volunteers working in the USGenWeb Project, among others. These records vary widely from location to location depending on the activity of the volunteers. Some sites

contain large and detailed transcriptions, while others may only contain minimal information about where to write for records. Www.cyndislist.com provides a portal to thousands of websites with genealogical information indexed by location and topic.

Scanned secondary sourcesHeritage Quest’s Family and Local Histories collection of scanned images of tens of thousands of published genealogies (accessible through newenglandancestors.org), literally brings the library into your home. These images can be used in the same way as photocopies from the originals (however, the text scanned versions available on some sites are not acceptable because of the many errors introduced during the text scanning). Most of these books are older, out of copyright publications, so you will not find the most up-to-date genealogies, but the old classics are there, including some rare volumes that are not available in many libraries (such as Franklyn Howland’s 1885 work on the Howland family, and Andrew Adams’s 1898 work on the Adams family containing many Alden descendants).

Search enginesFinally, any thorough Internet search should include the use of a search engine, such as www.google.com. Make it a habit to do a Google search every time you look for a name or place. A recent search on the name Augustus Alden brought me to sites on Civil War artillery companies, Andersonville Prison, mayors of Nashville, and Amherst College alumni!

Some common Mayflower errorsHere are a few bad connections to watch out for:

Alden – The parentage of John Alden has not been discovered despite various claims. Henry Alden of Billerica and Dedham, Massachusetts, was not a son or grandson of John Alden of the Mayflower, although Henry left descendants who are often confused with the John Alden family.

Brewster – William Brewster’s wife Mary remains unidentified and has no proved royal ancestry. Neither William Brewster of Jamestown, Virginia, nor Rev. Nathaniel Brewster of New Haven, Connecticut, was a child of William Brewster of the Mayflower.

Brown – Claims of royal ancestry for Peter Brown are unfounded. He has descendants only through his daughters and was not the father of Peter Brown of Windsor, Connecticut. Therefore, finding a “Brown” ancestor will not lead you back to the family of the Mayflower.

Cooke – Josiah Cooke of Eastham was not a son of Francis Cooke of the Mayflower.

Doty – Claimed baptismal records and ancestry for Edward Doty are fictional.

Fuller – The second wife of Samuel2 Fuller was not a descendant of William Brewster.

Goodman/Dunham – John Goodman of the Mayflower was not the same man as John Dunham who later settled in Plymouth and left descendants.

Hopkins –Neither John Hopkins of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, nor

William Hopkins of Southold, Long Island, are descendants of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower.

Howland – John Howland’s wife, Elizabeth Tilley, was not a daughter of John Carver of the Mayflower.

Mullins – Claims that the Mullins family is really the Molyneaux family or that William Mullins of the Mayflower was Huguenot are false, and claims of royal ancestry are unfounded. The maiden name of his wife Alice is not known.

Rogers – The only children of Thomas Rogers to have known descendants are sons Joseph and John. Attempts to connect other New England Rogers families with this family are false.

Sampson – Abraham Sampson of Plymouth is not a brother to Henry Sampson of the Mayflower, although he may be a cousin. Henry Sampson’s son John died without issue and is not John Sampson of Beverly, Massachusetts.

Standish – Thomas Standish of Wethersfield, Connecticut, was not a son of Myles Standish of the Mayflower.

Warren – Claims that Richard Warren has royal ancestry are unfounded.

White – William White’s wife Susanna’s maiden name is not known; she was not a sister of Mayflower passengers Samuel and Edward Fuller.

Some additions to Parts II and III of this series:

Mayflower lineages from women passengers

The Mayflower Society is now accepting lineages filed from three women who came on the Mayflower; previously, all lineages had to begin with one of the male heads of families. The three new qualifying ancestors were chosen because they were adult, married women whose maiden names are known:

Mary (Norris) Allerton, wife of Isaac Allerton and mother of passengers Remember and Mary Allerton.

Elizabeth (Fisher) Hopkins, second wife of Stephen Hopkins.

Joan (Hurst) (Rogers) Tilley, wife of John Tilley and mother of passenger Elizabeth Tilley.

New Mayflower Families publications

Since the publication of Part III of this series, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants has published:

Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, Volume 23, Part 1, John Howland, containing the first four generations of his younger children: Lydia (who married James Brown), Hannah (who married Jonathan Bosworth), Joseph, Jabez, Ruth (who married Thomas Cushman) and Isaac. This leaves two middle children – Hope, who married John Chipman, and Elizabeth, who married Ephraim Hicks and John Dickinson – who have not yet been treated in print.

Mayflower Families in Progress, George Soule, Fifth and Sixth Generations, Part Four (Family Numbers 552-636).

Researching Your Mayflower Ancestors: Part V: Primary Research: Finding the best records to prove your case

Alicia Crane Williams

In the hierarchy of documenting a lineage, primary records are the most desirable. Even when secondary sources seem to give reliable information, it is always prudent to track down as much primary documentation to support the secondary source as possible. However, because primary records can be difficult to find, or to understand once found, many people applying for membership in hereditary societies make the error of providing minimal or inadequate primary sources.

The Mayflower Society wants primary documentation in support of every generation on every lineage paper (it requires it for the last three generations). It will accept "good" secondary sources - particularly those that cite primary references. In extreme cases it will accept circumstantial arguments, but not without proof that a diligent search has been made for primary records. The more primary documentation presented with a lineage application, the better case for acceptance.

A "primary" source can be described as an acceptable record made at the time of an event or by a reliable witness to the event (you were present at your own birth, for example, but not a "reliable" witness to it). Acceptable primary records include birth, marriage, and death certificates, Bible, church, cemetery, probate, and land records, but there are many different kinds of records that may be used.

Birth, marriage, and death records:Vital records (births, marriages, deaths) may be kept by the town, county, and/or the state, each of which will have different parameters - when they began keeping records, what clerk, registries or courts have the records, what records are open, who can access the records, when, and for how much. Privacy and security issues have tightened controls on access to records, particularly birth records that might be used fraudulently, and some records may only be available to family members and authorized individuals. In some cases certificates for "genealogical use only" may be issued. One of the reasons that every researcher should obtain copies of vital records now is the threat of having access to these records closed in the future.

Guides to locating where vital records may be obtained are available on the Internet (start with www.cyndislist.com) and in print (see newenglandancestors.org research articles and publications). There are also on-line services through which some state level vital records can be ordered for a fee (ancestry.com's "VitalChek" for one). If you are looking for a record in a state where births, marriages, and deaths were kept by the town, it may be faster and less expensive to write to the town clerk for a record - although this depends on the individual clerk.

The usefulness of a vital record depends on the detail of information and the informant. In many places "short form" birth certificates are issued which do not include the names of parents, or have limited information. These "short form" records are not acceptable. "Long form"

certificates with all of the information from the original record are required, or a copy from the original record itself. Birth and marriage records are usually the most reliable (because informants are the parents or the individuals being married), death records are often the least reliable (because the informant may be a distraught spouse, grandchild, or unrelated person) -although there are exceptions to everything.

Older records may be available on microfilm and/or online, such as the Massachusetts vital records 1841-1910 available through newenglandancestors.org. Many may also be found at libraries and repositories such as the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Published volumes of vital records may also be used.

Bible recordsA family Bible with "contemporary" records is considered primary. Contemporary means the records were entered into the Bible at the time of the events or by someone who witnessed the events. Handwriting can often be used to determine who made different entries. Whenever possible, the title page of the Bible with the date of publication should be submitted with copies of all of the pages with family information. Provenance of the Bible stating to whom it originally belonged, to whom it now belongs, and, if possible, identifying owners in between, should also be attached to the copies.

Transcriptions or abstracts made from a Bible that has been lost may be acceptable if the transcriber can be identified and some information on when and where the transcription was made is provided. Unless complete and literal, the transcription becomes secondary evidence.

Church and Cemetery RecordsBaptisms, marriages, and burials were recorded by religious organizations. Many times a record that was not kept by the civil authority may show up in a church record. Gravestones may be the only surviving record of some ancestors. Local libraries are often the best sources for knowledge of local churches, cemeteries and their records. Religious denominations have regional or national repositories of some records (such as Catholic dioceses). Rootsweb.com includes hundreds of transcriptions from church and cemetery records scattered throughout the country (on-line transcriptions or abstracts are considered secondary).

Photographs of gravestones are admissible for the date of death, age of death, relationship ("wife of") if given, and place of burial (not necessarily place of death), although, like death records, they can be unreliable (if the stone carver cut the wrong age, it was probably cheaper just to leave it). Stones erected by a later generation are not contemporary. Cemetery lot maps and records can be used to show family relationships.

Probate and recordsProbate records can be extremely useful in proving connections between generations. Many probate records have been microfilmed and can be accessed through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and other Mormon stake libraries as well as state and local institutions, and in some cases indexes have been published on-line.

Most probates are kept by the county, although in a few states they are kept by probate districts

or the town. You can also find guides explaining the types of probate (testate and intestate), terminology, and the various records found in probate files. The most obvious are wills, which can make a direct link between parent and child, sometimes grandchildren, but even estates without wills may contain receipts, distributions, divisions, guardianships, etc., that name heirs -such as the receipt given by John Littlejohn for the cow his wife Sarah inherited from her father's estate, which is the only proof of who Sarah married!

Not every ancestor left a probate record, of course. Probate was required only when there was property, and many died without owning enough to go through probate. Property, however, did not only mean real estate. Personal estate (from clothes to furniture to livestock) was also included in probate. A probate search should always be an important part of every genealogical case and will often be requested by the Mayflower Society to prove or shore up a weak link in a lineage.

Land records are difficult to use, but they, too, can provide valuable information, particularly when other sources are not found. The Mormon microfilms include deeds as well as probate mentioned above, but indexes to deeds are less often found on-line. Usually, land records can be found in the same courthouse or town hall as the probate records, so a search in one can be supplemented by a search in the other.

A search in deeds is not as clear cut as one in probate where everything will be found in a single file. The most obvious land records for proving a lineage are those in which a parent deeds land to a child with specific relationships stated, but most deeds do not give relationships (which may have to be inferred through a series of records). Deeds may be used to show migration - such as John Smith of Ames, Iowa, selling property he had owned in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They may also be used to identify spouses - e.g., John Smith and wife Jane selling land Jane inherited from her father.

Because of the complexity of deed searches, the services of a professional researcher may be useful. For the purposes of proving a lineage, land records do not need to be consulted unless there is a particular problem that cannot be solved with other records.

Other Primary RecordsThe variety of other records that can be used to prove a lineage is nearly unlimited. A few examples:

Pension Records: Revolutionary War pensions are now available on-line (through newenglandancestors.org) and in published abstracts. Not all pension records contain genealogical information, but many provide proof of marriage (for a widow's pension), names and birth dates of children, affidavits of siblings and children, and sometimes actual pages torn out of the family Bible! Pension records can also prove geographic migrations - e.g. that John Brown who served from Massachusetts was the man who moved to Broome County, New York. Civil War pensions can be obtained through the National Archives and branches, and World War I Draft registrations are available online at ancestry.com.

Census Records: Census records are not really primary records because the quality of the census

information was often compromised by the thoroughness and competency of the census taker and from whom the information was obtained. The census taker was concentrating on gathering statistics, not on proving lineages, thus inventive spellings, odd ages, and other anomalies abound. However, because all census records are now available on the Internet, a thorough census search for any family is feasible and can enhance proof of relationships and migration of families - Joseph Alden found in the 1880 census, for example, with ten children; the first three born in Massachusetts, three in Pennsylvania, one in Kentucky, two in Missouri, and the last born in Arkansas.

Tax and Town Records: Tax records can prove residency and sometimes relationships when heirs are named in succeeding tax rolls. They may be useful in differentiating between two individuals of the same name living in the same location. Town records other than births, marriages, and deaths may include "warnings out" (when individuals or families were warned to leave the jurisdiction of a town where they did not have a means of support), registration of cattle marks ( often inherited or transferred to heirs); and land records. Some early New England town records have been published - Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate - and others are available on microfilm. Usually un-indexed, original town records may be difficult to search, but can be a source of last resort in difficult cases.

Family Letters and Diaries: Original family letters or diary entries may be used to prove relationships when the writer had personal knowledge of the information given. The writer and person receiving the letter should be identified and the date of writing included; envelopes with postmarks and addresses are also useful.

I have seen autograph books, samplers, school records, insurance policies, medical reports, and many other eclectic items used to prove Mayflower lineages! No stone left unturned is a genealogist's best motto.

That said, applicants should not clutter their applications with extraneous records, but should locate and submit the best records available to prove their lineage.

Researching Your Mayflower Ancestors: Part VI: Proving your line: Preparing lineage papers that will pass the test

Alicia Crane Williams

When you apply for membership in the Mayflower Society (see Part I of this series), the State Historian will send you a worksheet form with instructions for completing the application. In most cases, the State Historian will have filled in the blanks for the early generations with the information that has already been filed with the society - at least the first five generations as published in the "Five Generations" books (see Part III of this series) - sometimes more from previously accepted lineage papers.

It is a good idea to make a photocopy of your worksheet to use for practice while you are collecting and arranging your documents (if your state society provides the worksheet in electronic form, you can print drafts while you work).

The lineage form has five rows of three columns :

Place Date References

b.

d.

m.

married to

b.

d.

The name of the line carrier (whether male or female) is entered above these rows, followed by the information on his or her birth, death, and marriage, then the name of the spouse and his or her birth and death.

The Mayflower Society uses some specific abbreviations to cite sources. You do not need to worry about knowing all of these abbreviations, the State Historian will formalize them on your final application, but it helps to know some of the more commonly used ones:

B/C, M/C, D/C = Birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate refers to a certificate issued by town, county, or state authority with information taken from an original record. You do not need to write the volume, page, issuing authority, or any other information.

B/R, M/R, D/R = Birth record, marriage record, death record. A "record" is an image of the actual original record as it appears in the town, county, or state repository, often taken from microfilm of the original volumes.

MF = Mayflower Families Through Five Generations; MFIP = Mayflower Families in Progress; MQ = The Mayflower Quarterly; MD = The Mayflower Descendant. You do not need to send copies of pages from any of these volumes.

VR = the published vital records of the town where the event took place. Include the volume and page of the book. If the record is from the published vital records of Massachusetts or Connecticut, you do not need to send copies of pages.

NEHGR = New England Historic Genealogical Register; TAG = The American Genealogist; NGSQ = National Genealogical Society Quarterly; NYGBR = New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.

1850 FC NY = 1850 Federal census, New York State.

Whenever a record is for the spouse of the line carrier add the prefix "s" (e.g., s-B/C; s-obit). In the reference column, list the primary documents first, then the secondary sources.

You will need to supply two photocopies of every source document that you submit with your paper (one stays with the State Society and one goes to the General Society files). As noted above, you do not need to send photocopies of published vital records of Massachusetts and Connecticut, or of any of the Mayflower Society's publications (in addition, the General Society library has many standard genealogies and books - check with your State Historian if you have questions about whether or not you need to supply copies from any particular book). If two or more members of your family are joining at the same time, you do not need to supply duplicate sets of documents for each person.

To help expedite your application, highlight the pertinent information on each document with a yellow highlight pen - names, dates, places. Also, you can code the documents by writing the generation number followed by a code letter (as listed below) in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of each document. These little things will shorten the time the State Historian spends on your application as well as help you to organize your records:

a = birth of line carrierb = death of line carrierc = marriaged = birth of spousee = death of spouse

For example, the birth certificate of line carrier Mary Adams in the seventh generation would be coded "7a" while her husband's birth certificate would be "7d" and so forth.

Finally, your documents should be arranged in order by generation, newest generation

first. Thus your own birth and (if appropriate) marriage, and spouse birth certificates first; your parents' records next, grandparents next, proceeding backward. Within the generations, arrange the records in a, b, c, d, e, order as much as possible - obviously, some records and secondary sources may refer to more than one generation. Do NOT submit multiple copies of the same source for different generations.

Red Flags

When the historians review your application (at both the state and General Society levels), they will be looking for "red flags" that indicate possible problems with the lineage. An awareness of these flags may help you avoid problems.

Blank spaces: Even though there are times when you don't know the specific place or date of an event, try to fill in the space with something [always place brackets around estimated information]. For example, a place of birth can be estimated from the location of the family in a census; a birth date can be estimated from the age in a census or age at death; a death can be designated as "after" a date of a deed or "bet" the date of signing a will and when the will was probated; or a marriage date can be estimated from the birth of the first child.

Single secondary source: Citing only one secondary source for a whole generation or more is inadequate. Try to locate at least one or two primary records for the generation, but if you cannot locate primary records, at least collect as many census records for the individual as possible that will support the secondary source as to their residence, age, and relationships to other members of the family.

Name's the same: Just because the census record says your John Crane was born in Massachusetts about 1800, does not necessarily mean he is the same John Crane whose birth is recorded in Norton. Likewise, because Benjamin Jones married a girl named Mary Smith in Dartmouth does not necessarily mean that she is the same Mary Smith whose birth is recorded in Dartmouth. Examples of unrecorded children abound, and people with similar names can easily be confused.

Missing maiden names: Often a birth, marriage, or death record for an individual may not include the maiden name of the mother of that individual. The record may simply state that the parents of Susan Allen are James and Elizabeth Allen. You may have a marriage record for James Allen and Elizabeth Green, but this does not prove they are the parents of Susan Allen -- or James Allen may have had two wives named Elizabeth (it happens!). If the Mayflower line descends through Elizabeth Green, then the lineage would not descend through children of James' other wife.

Geographic leaps: If Mary Jones was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, and her parents lived and died in there, can she really be the same Mary Jones who was married in

Groton, Connecticut? Although there are exceptions to everything, marriages usually took place in the town of residence of the bride's family. Any big geographic change needs to be corroborated with primary evidence. Is the Daniel Brown family of Iowa in 1850 the same Daniel Brown family of Maine in 1840?

Age discrepancies: On average the usual marriage age for women was 18-20 and for men about 25-30. The usual child bearing years for a woman are from her late teens to her mid 40's. Again, while there are exceptions to everything, any extreme deviation from these averages may put up a red flag - such as a woman marrying at the age of 13 or having a child past age 50. Technically possible, these are not usual circumstances and would need to be supported by very solid primary documentation.

Records from other generations: Although the names of parents appear on a child's birth certificate, that record is not proof of the parents' marriage. The name of an informant on a death certificate is not proof that person is a child of the deceased.

Multiple marriages: If either a line carrier or spouse has multiple marriages, the names of other spouses should be noted beside their names [e.g. "m 2) John Smith"] and documentation for the other marriages should be submitted. If the applicant has been married more than once, list each marriage in order and supply all marriage and (if appropriate) divorce records as well as birth and death records as appropriate for all spouses. Exceptions in the case of unavailable records (such as a birth of a divorced spouse) may be made, but it is a firm rule that all marriages be documented.

Incomplete last three generations: The Mayflower Society wants every birth, marriage, and death in the last three generations (yourself and spouse, parents, grandparents) of every paper fully documented. Omitting any of these records will delay acceptance of your application. If there are any special circumstances that prevent you from supplying a particular document in the last three generations, consult with the State Historian for alternatives.

Circumstantial cases

When neither direct primary evidence nor acceptable secondary sources can be supplied to prove a line, a circumstantial case may be presented, but you will need to:

1. Understand the differences between original and derivative sources, primary and secondary information, and direct and indirect evidence (consult such sources as Brenda Dougall Merriman, About Genealogical Standards of Evidence, A Guide for Genealogists, 2nd ed., 2004, published by the Ontario Genealogical Society).

2. Provide a concise, written "executive summary" of the evidence presented, preferably using Register Style (see Genealogical Writing in the 21st Century: A Guide to Register Style and More under NEHGS publications).

3. Demonstrate that a diligent and thorough search has been made of all existing primary records and that said search did not locate direct evidence that either proves or refutes the line.

4. Convincingly argue that the proposed lineage is "probable" - not just "possible."

DNA EvidenceThe Mayflower Society has recently accepted DNA evidence in support of a lineage. DNA evidence alone, however, is not sufficient. It must be accompanied by as much circumstantial documentation as possible to show a paper trail. DNA cannot specifically identify an ancestor, only confirm two male lineages descend from a common male ancestor at some distance in the past.

Final PapersIf you have difficulty completing your worksheet, consult with the State Historian. Submit your material even if you feel it may not be complete and let the State Historian help you with any problems if possible. Be prepared to have the historians, either State or General, ask for more documentation on a particular point. This does not mean your line is wrong only that a question has come up that needs clarifying - you will only be asked for additional documentation when it is vital to proving the lineage. There may be circumstances where consulting a professional researcher with expertise in a particular geographic area or type of record becomes necessary.

Once you submit your completed worksheet and documents to the State Historian, it will take a number of months for the application to proceed through the entire system. When the State Historian is satisfied, he or she will prepare your final lineage papers and send them to you to sign. Then, the State Historian will send the signed papers and documents to the Historian General's office in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where a Verifying Genealogist will review all of the material again and either okay the paper for the Historian General's final review and signature or indicate there is a problem that needs more detailed attention from the Historian General. In the latter case, the Historian General will correspond with the State Historian, who will report the problem to you. If the paper passes, the State Historian will be notified and proceed with your election to membership.

Patience and careful work will pay off in the end. The process may sound intimidating, but the journey can be fun and once your papers are completed, you will have a meaningful record of your Mayflower heritage to pass on to the next generation.

Copyright 2001-2008, New England Historic Genealogical Society. Do not reproduce without permission.New England Historic Genealogical Society | 101 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, USA | (617) 536-5740 | Fax (617) 536-7307