Thursday, November 22, 2012

My Mayflower Connections - Soule, White, Warren, Cooke, Brewster, Hopkins and Fuller

I posted last year about my own connections to passengers on the Mayflower that landed at Plymouth in New England in December 1620.

Here are my blog posts for each core Mayflower ancestor (with the names of my Pilgrim ancestors in parentheses):

*  My Mayflower Connections - 1. George Soule (George Soule)  

*  My Mayflower Connections - 2. William White (William White, Susanna (--?--) White, Peregrine White)

*  My Mayflower Connections - 3. Richard Warren (Richard Warren)

*  My Mayflower Connections - 4. Francis Cooke (Francis Cooke, John Cooke)

*  My Mayflower Connections - 5. Stephen Hopkins (Stephen Hopkins, Constance Hopkins)

*  My Mayflower Connections - 6. William Brewster (William Brewster, Mary (--?--) Brewster)

*  My Mayflower Connections - 7. Edward Fuller (Edward Fuller, Ann? (--?--), Samuel Fuller)

You can see all Mayflower lines posted so far by geneabloggers in Heather Wilkinson Rojo's blog post,My Mayflower Passenger Ancestors.

I had an email last year from someone not to be named to the effect of:  "Why are you boasting about your Mayflower ancestors?  Are you trying to show that you are a better researcher than the rest of us?  Or that these passengers were somehow special?"

My response was:


No, I'm not "boasting," just documenting the lines from my Mayflower ancestors so that it might help other researchers. It's "cousin bait."  It is also the week of the American Thanksgiving holiday, and another geneablogger started the list meme going, so I joined in.  I think most readers understand all of this, but at least one didn't!  

Am I a "better researcher?"  No - I have done no original research on the Mayflower passengers.  I have done research on my lines from the passengers.  Other researchers have done an excellent job of finding and documenting the records and family relationships of many of the passengers. 

These passengers are "special" to me, they're my ancestors who shared in an historic adventure to North America.  They are part of history, as are ALL persons, but these Mayflower folks are better known and widely researched as a result.

How might it help another researcher?  Let's say that a beginning genealogist has just found a couple by diligently researching back in time - for example, perhaps s/he found that s/he was descended from Eliza Putman and Alexander Sovereign.  Then s/he Googled the couple and found the My Mayflower Connections - 7. Edward Fuller post.  Do you think s/he would be excited?  Do you think s/he would contact me and ask for me to share whatever information I was willing to share?  Do you think that  she might have family, photographs, or letters, or records that s/he could share with me?   That's what we're all striving for with many of our research posts, Surname Saturday posts, etc., isn't it?

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/11/my-mayflower-connections-soule-white.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

3 comments:

Jae said...

Oh, I love it!

My grandmother had a professional genealogy report done of her paternal family in the 1960s or 1970s and they claimed in the report that we were also descended from Peregrine White.

She gave me the report 10 years ago. I'm STILL trying to find proof that its true.

T said...

Off the top of my head I can't remember whether I have 5 or 7 passengers in my ancestry, but what is the "typical" number you've heard of? Reading posts here, that seems to be a ball park number. It's a giant jig saw puzzle. If I don't stay in that family pattern I forget exactly who is related to who because they are ALL related to each other in one way or another. Was the Mayflower our own personal Ark?

Michigan Girl said...

Excellent response and right on the money Randy. That's exactly why I write my blog. To make more people aware of my ancestors, be able to give them access to me and therefore me access to them, and one more thing.....blogging and sharing has made me a better researcher.