Mayflower Ancestors

Ella made this in preschool. I pointed to the bridge and said
"Look! There's your 12xgreat-grandfather!" She was unimpressed.

I hate to perpetuate the Thanksgiving Myth. I'd love to replace the insipid and factually inaccurate story of pilgrims and Indians with, say, the true life story of Tisquantum (aka Squanto), who was one seriously amazing person. But, I digress...

Thanksgiving is a good time to post about our family's Mayflower ancestors. I've found eleven so far, plus a number of early immigrants to Plymouth from other ships. Like my post on Revolutionary War soldiers, I will keep updating this post as I learn more. The following is as accurate as I can make it, but there are a number of self-perpetuating genealogical myths about the Mayflower, so it can be a minefield for the amateur like myself. Still, some 35 million people - about 12% of the U.S. population - can claim descent from one of the 24 original Mayflower families to leave descendants, so the odds are with us.

Now, on to those batty boaters in black.

The Bartlett Mayflower Ancestors:

Most of our Mayflower ancestry comes from Nova Scotia. Lydia Bartlett (1779-1862), my 5xgreat-grandmother and the descendant of multiple Mayflower passengers, married Thomas Kinney (1783-?). The Kinneys married into the Hancocks, and the Hancocks married into the Deans. Not all of Lydia's ancestors were on the Mayflower, of course, but those who were not had almost all reached Plymouth by 1635. Lydia Bartlett's ancestors include:

Richard Warren: Richard Warren was a London merchant and a man of some wealth. He was given the title "Mr.", which suggests he was a person of property. Unlike most of the London merchant contingent, though, he signed on to the voyage as a member of the Leiden group (the pilgrims). It is not clear why, or whether he was a member of the "Saints", as the puritans were called, or the "Strangers", as they called those who were from the more secular community and were financially backing the colony. Warren signed the Mayflower Compact, helped scout the Cape Cod region, and was part of the First Encounter (when the colonists met the indigenous inhabitants and learned that well-trained bowmen trump slow muskets.)

Warren's wife, Elizabeth Walker, and his five daughters, were left behind in England, but came over to Plymouth in 1623, on the Anne. Richard and Elizabeth Warren had seven children, all of whom survived and had numerous children themselves, making this couple one of the most common Mayflower ancestors. Some of their descendants include Ulysses Grant, Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Longfellow, Henry Thoreau, and Alan Shepard. Oh, and us.

Lydia Bartlett descended from Richard's eldest daughter, Mary, who married Robert Bartlett, a fellow passenger on the Anne, and Lydia's 3xgreat-grandfather.

Edward Doty: Doty traveled on the Mayflower as the indentured servant of Stephen Hopkins (who is also one of our ancestors), which suggests he had little personal wealth. He was probably from London, and was a member of the "Strangers" contingent - the more secular group traveling to the new colony for economic opportunities. He signed the Mayflower Compact, and was part of the group that scouted Cape Cod for suitable habitation sites, along with Warren and Hopkins.

Doty's major legacy is that he was, well, a bit of a jackass. He was never kicked out of Plymouth, like many troublemakers were, but he was well represented in the legal annals of the colony. He fought the first duel in the colony, in the summer of 1621, and his behavior didn't improve much from there. The surviving records document 23 court cases brought against him, with charges ranging from fraud to slander to theft to assault. He never suffered serious punishments, however, so his crimes must have been relatively minor.

Doty married Faith Clarke, whose family arrived in 1634, and they had nine children. Lydia Bartlett's grandfather, Lemuel Bartlett, married Mary Doty, who was the great-granddaughter of Edward and Faith Doty.

Francis Cooke (thrice): Cooke, unlike Doty and Warren, was a "Saint", a member of the puritan religious contingent out of Leiden, Holland, where the community had been in exile from the stricter religious rules of England. Actually, he was a religious seperatist who was already in Leiden when the puritans arrived. He had married a French Walloon (Protestant), Hester Mahieu, and was a member of that church, but later joined the puritans.

Cooke and his eldest son, John, who was thirteen at the time, sailed on the Mayflower, leaving Hester and the younger children behind. The rest of the family came later, on the Anne. Cooke never held high office, but neither was he a troublemaker like Doty. The records indicate he consistently did his duty to the colony, and was particularly active as a surveyor. He was a signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Francis and Hester Cooke had seven children. We are related to them three ways. Their second son, Jacob, had a daughter, Elizabeth, with his first wife, Damaris Hopkins. Elizabeth married Edward Doty's son, and became Lydia Bartlett's great grandmother. Elizabeth's younger sister, Ruth, married Helkiah Tinkham, and their great-granddaughter was Lydia Bartlett's mother. Jacob Cooke also had a daughter, Sarah, with his second wife, Elizabeth Lettice. Sarah married Lydia Bartlett's grandfather, Lemuel Bartlett.

Stephen Hopkins and Elizabeth Fisher Hopkins (Stephen seven times, Elizabeth twice): Stephen Hopkins had a fascinating life, even before he boarded the Mayflower with his wife, Elizabeth, and three of his children. Hopkins had owned a tavern in Hampshire, but signed up to sail to Jamestown in June of 1609. His ship, the Sea Venture, was caught in a storm, and the company was shipwrecked on Bermuda. They were there ten months before they built ships and sailed to Virginia. During that time, Hopkins was charged with and convicted of mutiny. He was sentenced to death, but was spared. Many scholars believe that Shakespeare's The Tempest was inspired by the story of the Sea Venture, and that the character Stephano was based on Stephen Hopkins.

Hopkins was in Jamestown under Captain John Smith from 1610-1614. He gained valuable colonial experience (i.e., how to screw over the local people and not drop dead from hunger), but returned to England when he received word that his first wife had died, leaving their three young children unprotected. Back in England, Hopkins remarried, to Elizabeth Fisher, had several more children, and ran his tavern until the whole family packed up and left on the Mayflower. They were "Strangers", not members of the puritan religious group. Hopkins signed the Mayflower Compact and he was instrumental in developing a relationship with Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag Confederacy. He became fluent in local languages.

He ran a tavern, which did not sit well with puritan authorities, and he was frequently the focus of complaints for allowing customers to drink on Sundays, or at late hours. Unlike his servant, Edward Doty, however, he was a relatively upstanding citizen. He had traveled with another servant, Edward Leister, who appears to have left for Virginia soon after landing. Stephen died in 1644. Elizabeth must have died before him, for in his will he asked that he be buried next to her.

Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins had seven children. He also had three with his first wife. Their fifth child, Damaris (second of that name, after their first Damaris died), married Jacob Cooke, the son of Francis Cooke, above. This marriage produced a daughter, Elizabeth, who married into the Doty line and became Lydia Bartlett's great-great grandmother. They also had a younger daughter, Ruth, who married a Tinkham. Lydia's mother was their great-granddaughter.

We are also related to Stephen (but not Elizabeth) through his son, Giles, and his daughter, Constance, from his first marriage. Constance married Nicholas Snow. Her granddaughter, Bethia Snow, married her brother Giles's grandson, John Smith, and they were the parents of Mercy Smith who married into the Kinney line. There is also an unproven connection between Constance and Nicholas's daughter Ruth and the Cole line, which married into the Kinney line. If that line were proven, we'd be related to Stephen five times - twice through Lydia Bartlett and three times through Thomas Kinney. (For two more connections to Hopkins, see below).

Peter Browne: Peter Browne was from Dorking, Surrey, the same town as the Mullins family, another set of Mayflower passengers. They were apparently quite close, and he accompanied them on their voyage, but unfortunately the Mullins died during the first winter. Browne had the dubious distinction - along with John Goodman - of being the first person to get lost in the woods upon arrival in Massachusetts. He was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and a member of the "Strangers" group of secular colonists.

Browne was single when he arrived, but he married Martha Ford, the widow of a Mr. Ford, who had sailed with her husband and children on the Fortune in 1621. (Mr. Ford died on the voyage.) Their daughter, Mary Browne, married Ephriam Trinkham, and their great-granddaughter married into the Bartlett family, becoming Lydia Bartlett's mother. (We are, incidentally, related to Martha Ford three times, since we are also descendants of her daughter from her first marriage, also named Martha Ford, and we are descendants of a daughter from her third marriage, Martha Nelson. And, yes, if you're beginning to wonder, Lydia Bartlett's inbreeding coefficient was rather high.) Browne died of an unknown infectious disease that killed several other Mayflower passengers in 1633. His daughter, Mary Browne, was placed in the guardianship of John Doane, who is also one of our ancestors.

The Doane Mayflower Ancestors:

Those are the six Mayflower passengers from whom we are descended through Lydia Bartlett (and her husband Thomas Kinney). Lydia Bartlett and Thomas Kinney's son, Simeon, married Olive Doane, who came from her own long line of inbred religious fanatics. While the Bartlett ancestors above were mostly "Strangers", the Doanes include more "Saints", plus a shocking level of inbreeding among the early families of Barnstable, Massachusetts.

Olive Doane gives us more links to Stephen Hopkins (or should we call him Stephano?). Olive's 3xgreat-grandfather, Daniel Doane, married Constance Snow, the grand-daughter of Stephen Hopkins. For those of you counting at home, yep, we are now descended from Stephen Hopkins at least five times, maybe six, if we accept the disputed Cole connection. But wait! Can we add a sixth/seventh line of descent? Yes! Mehitable Kenney, Olive Doane's mother, was the 3xgreat-granddaughter of Stephen Hopkins, through his son, Giles.

William Brewster and Mary Brewster: William Brewster was the only college-educated "Saint", and the only one with diplomatic and political experience. As a young man, he had studied at Cambridge and was aide to William Davidson, who was a secretary to Elizabeth I. Davidson is mainly known to history as the man who obeyed Elizabeth's secret order to execute Mary, Queen of Scots, and then to take the fall for "mistakenly" having her killed in 1587. Brewster worked for him at the time.

In 1609, Brewster fled England with a number of separatists to the Netherlands, where he was elected the ruling elder of the congregation. He later became "second in command" to Pastor John Robinson, the leader of the Pilgrims in Leiden. Brewster was in hiding for the year before leaving on the Mayflower, after he published criticisms of the English king.

Brewster was joined on the Mayflower by his wife, Mary, and his two sons. In Plymouth, Brewster served as the first religious leader of the colony, and was an important adviser to Governor Bradford. He died in 1644.

William and Mary Brewster had five children: Patience, Fear, Love, Wrestling, and...Johnathan. We are descendants of Patience Brewster, who married Thomas Pence. Their great-granddaughter married Israel Doane, and was Olive Doane's great-great grandmother.

The Manary Mayflower Ancestors:

My grandmother, Ilau Manary Dean, had Mayflower ancestors through her father, who was a descendant of British loyalists in Canada. Specifically, her great-grandmother, Eleanor Holland McGregor, had a long New England pedigree. She had three Mayflower ancestors, all from the same family.

Mary Chilton, and her parents, James and Susanna Chilton: Mary Chilton was only 13 when she accompanied her parents, James and Susanna, on the Mayflower voyage. She was known for being the first woman to step ashore. She was a member of the "Saints", having spent much of her childhood in Leiden. James Chilton, her father, signed the Mayflower Compact, but both of her parents died within a month of landing, from the first wave of infectious disease to sweep the colony. He was 63, the oldest of the colonists.

Mary married John Winslow. Their daughter, Susannah, married a Latham. Susannah's grandaughter, Anne, married a Wade, and Anne's grandaughter, Hannah Wade, married into the McGregor family. Eleanor Holland McGregor was her grand-daughter.

The "Other Mayflowers":

The 102 passengers on the Mayflower arrived in Massachusetts in late 1620. The first winter was so harsh (or, rather, they were so unprepared), that almost half the colonists died. By the time of the "First Thanksgiving" only four adult women were still alive.

The Mayflower had sailed back to England, and in November of 1621, a group of 37 colonists sent by the colony's merchant backers arrived on the Fortune. By then, the situation in the colony had stabilized, and a number of men who had come over on their own sent back to Holland or England for their wives and children. In July of 1623, the Anne arrived, bringing another 96 colonists, many relatives of Mayflower colonists. With the arrival of the Anne, Plymouth colony had nearly 200 people. In addition to our eleven ancestors on the Mayflower, which constitutes nearly a third of the families who left descendants, we are also descended from a number of those early additions to the colony, in some cases many times over(descent through the Kinney/Bartlett line unless noted):

Fortune Passengers (November 1621):
Stephen Deane
Martha Ford
Mr. Ford (died during voyage)
Martha Ford (daughter of Martha and Mr. Ford)
Thomas Prence
John Winslow (descent through the Manary line)

Anne Passengers (July 1623):
Nicholas Snow
Eliza Walker Warren
Mary Warren
Jacob Cooke
Hester Mahien Cooke
John Faunce
George Morton
Julianne Carpenter Morton
Patience Morton
Nathaniel Morton
Edward Bangs

We are descended, then, from about 13% of the inhabitants of Plymouth in 1623. Given the high degree of endogamous marriage in colonial New England, that's not particularly surprising.