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Are We Really Mayflower Descendants?

This year, I’m verifying our Mayflower connections with my husband, Rob. His path is smoother because his great-uncle previously applied and the Mayflower Society accepted his application via William Brewster. For him, I just need to reconstruct that application and include more evidence. It’s mainly about proving the parent-to-child relationship across generations.

On Family Search (www.familysearch.org) I, apparently have a connection to Degory Priest on my maternal line. If this is true, he would be my 12th great-grandfather.

picture of the Mayflower docked in Boston

On the website American Ancestors (a subscription site, part of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society), I found an article that explains how to document your lineage back to a Mayflower passenger.

The first 5 generations, starting with Degory Priest, are completed for you and published in the “Silver Books” (named for their silver covers). These books also include the children of the 5th generation, giving you six generations with names, dates, and places. Beyond that, however, you’ll need to provide your own proof. In my case, the individual from the 5th generation is Sarah Swan (Ebenezer Swan, Mary Pratt, Mary Priest, Degory Priest).¹

Sarah Swan was born on 26 Feb 1700/01 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, British America, and married Ephraim Cook in Cambridge on 14 Dec 1727.² They had 10 children including my potential 7th great-grandmother, Sarah Cook.

So now I need to link the remaining generations down to me. And like all genealogy questions, you start with what you know and move backward. Hopefully, when I do get further back those documents will connect with Sarah Cook. If they don’t at least I’ll know who my ancestors are not.

Won’t you join me on my Mayflower Journey?

Genealogy Tip: When starting a lineage application, read through it carefully and educate yourself on what the society needs to approve your application. There are many online sources to help you with whatever society you are trying to join.

If you’d like to see if your lineage takes you back to the Mayflower, let’s get started…together.

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¹ “Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880,” online database, AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society (https://www.americanancestors.org/databases/mayflower-families-fifth-generation-descendants-1700-1880/image?; accessed 10 Jan 2023), entry for Degory Priest, Vol. 8, pp. 72-3; citing “Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620,” Plymouth MA; General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975-2015.

² Ibid.

My Favorite Photo

Welcome to week 2 of the 52 Ancestors Challenge. This is a tough one…there are so many photos that I love. But if I had to pick one I think it would be this one:

This is a photo of my parents. Mom thinks it was taken roughly four months after they got married, probably at her grandmother’s house in Tennessee. She remembers sharing the news of her pregnancy with their first child with her family. Dad was really eager to start a family, and they wasted no time. Just a year after their wedding, my brother was born. They both seem incredibly happy in the picture!

Just for kicks, I found a free site that will colorize your pics… https://www.img2go.com/colorize-image

colorized picture of a happy mom and dad

Since this is the year for organizing/scanning all the old photos (gulp!) I’m sure I’ll come up with new favorites every day! But for now, I’ll enjoy this one.

Genealogy tip: Scanning and organizing photos can be a difficult task, especially if you have hundreds to go through. Do a little at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll go through them just by being consistent.

If you’re trying to find names of unknown ancestors, give me a call. I love digging into the records of new families.

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Do You Know Where Your 8x Great-Grandparents Are Buried?

My husband, Rob, is only a little interested in genealogy. Usually, his eyes glaze over when I tell him something about his ancestors. I’m sure you can all relate. But he surprised me. When I suggested going on a trip to find where his ancestors are buried, he was all for it.

We had a free hotel room coming to us that was going to expire at the end of 2022, so he came up with the idea of traveling to Newbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts to see the ancestral land of his 8x great-grandfather, Henry Lunt, one of the founders of Newbury back in the 1630s.

It’s a great time of year to do this kind of thing as long as the weather cooperates. Newburyport, as the name suggests, is a coastal town, so in the summer months, tourists are all over the place and it’s much harder to get around.

We stopped first at the monument dedicated to the first settlers. Names of interest for Rob include Lunt, Dole, Cutting, Knight, Noyes, Rolfe, and Emery.

Next was the Burying Ground of the First Settlers.

Burying Ground of the First Settlers sign. Includes the words "Mary and John" and 1635. The Mary and John was the ship in which they arrived in 1635.

It is set off the road and there is no parking available, so we just parked on the side and walked a few feet to the entrance.

Picture of the entrance to the cemetery.

I already knew Henry Lunt would not have a headstone, even though he is buried here. But other direct-line ancestors do have headstones such as Richard Dole and his wife Hannah Rolfe, another set of Rob’s 8x great-grandparents. If you do the math we each have 1,024 8th great-grandparents.

After a nice drive around, we wanted to see if we could find any more Lunt ancestors, so it was off to two cemeteries, First Parish Burying Ground (established in 1635) and Oak Hill Cemetery (founded in 1842). There were numerous family members in both. Rob was equally as excited as I was when we found one. Some headstones were by themselves and others were in a family plot with many headstones.

By the end of the day, we both felt good about what we accomplished. Rob did mention that it seems surreal that these people are part of his lineage. I guess because he is not knee-deep in records like I am, he feels disconnected from them. I’m not sure he’ll ever want to dive into the records, but that’s okay. That’s my task and I do it happily.

Update: To read more about what photos to take when you go to a cemetery, read this blog post.

Genealogy Tip: Do your research before you go on any kind of genealogy trip. Familiarize yourself with surnames that may have been associated with your ancestors. This tip helped a lot in our cemetery adventure as I looked around the headstones to see many familiar names.

I love doing cemetery research, so if you’d like a hand with your family, let me know.

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