Mayflower Ahoy!

Two more pieces of documentation to submit (my mom’s birth certificate and my parent’s marriage certificate) and my application to join the Mayflower Society will be complete. According to the archives, I’m a descendant of John and Priscilla Alden. And my mom said I wouldn’t find anyone famous….

There is one stumbling block that could bar my getting full bragging rights. For years, one of the go-to records for historians has been the Otis Family History book. Now there is some question as to whether everything Mr. W.H. Otis wrote in 1924 is accurate. According to Mr. Otis, my ancestor Lucy Otis was born in New London, Connecticut in 1761. However, there’s no birth on record (back then, they didn’t always file with the town. The family bible sufficed), and Lockport, NY where she died didn’t start keeping records until after her death. So I will need to see if the historian can find a secondary source.

Still, I’m feeling pretty good that the lineage will hold up.

John and Priscilla Alden. Nice to see the family nose on full display

Upping the Cool Factor

As if being connected to Longfellow’s poem wasn’t cool enough, among the passengers sailing with John Alden were a man named Thomas Rogers and his 17-year-old son, Joseph. Thomas died over that first winter. However, Joseph lived and became one of the early settlers of Duxbury, Massachusetts. He later served on a board of trustees in Duxbury with John Alden.

My son’s best friend is an ancestor of Thomas and Joseph Rogers.

Joseph Roger’s ancester (front) and John Alden’s ancester (rear) set sail in Iceland in 2023

I wonder what 21-year-old John and 17-year-old Joseph would think if they knew that 404 years after they set sail for a New World, their descendants would become life-long friends. I get a little shiver every time I think about it.