Mayflower Project Reliable Sources

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• Wikispace Mayflower
• Mayflower Passengers
• Mayflower Family Members

General Society of Mayflower Descendants

• Mayflower Society Publications https://www.themayflowersociety.org/our-publications

Silver Books (Some local public libraries have these books)

• various authors. Mayflower Families through Five Generations. (Boston, Mass.: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, various dates)

Mayflower Ancestral Index

• Register of the Society of Mayflower Descendants (General Society of Mayflower Descendants )

The Mayflower Descendant

• The Mayflower Descendant (Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, Boston)

Mayflower Journal

Mayflower Journal: bi-annual publication of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Pulication Years 2016?-2018.

Before the Voyage, Leiden

Pilgrim Documents online Leiden archives.

Plimoth Plantation

• Plimoth Plantation https://www.plimoth.org
• Plimoth & Patuxet Ancestors https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/plimoth-patuxet-ancestors
• Plimoth Plantation Museum shop - Pink and Green Mayflower Families in Progress -The pink 'Mayflower Families in Progress' (MFIP) booklets are silver books in the making. These booklets are made available while new information is being researched. Once complete, they become silver books. GSMD makes them available in soft-cover so that the information can be available to genealogists while further research is underway. https://www.plimoth.com/products/mayflower-families-in-progress

Pilgrim Hall Museum

• Museum https://www.pilgrimhall.org

• Passenger Biographies https://pilgrimhall.org/bio_will_inventory_doc.htm

History

• Bradford's History Bradford, William. History of Plymouth Plantation (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856) Citation: <ref name=Bradford>Bradford, William. History of Plymouth Plantation (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856) pp</ref>
  • Bradford's Original Manuscript. Bradford, William, 1590-1657. Of Plimoth Plantation: manuscript, 1630-1650. State Library of Massachusetts "List of Mayflower Passengers." Citation <ref name=BradfordMan>Bradford, William, 1590-1657. ''Of Plimoth Plantation: manuscript, 1630-1650. [https://archives.lib.state.ma.us/handle/2452/208249 State Library of Massachusetts] "List of Mayflower Passengers." In Bradford's Hand. </ref>

• Morton, Nathaniel. New England's Memorial. First published in 1669. Published with additions several times since. 1826 1855 others

• Dexter, Henry Martyn. Mourt's Relation Or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth (John Kimball Wiggin, Boston, 1865)

• Pope, Charles Henry. The pioneers of Massachusetts, a descriptive list, drawn from records of the colonies, towns and churches and other contemporaneous documents. Boston: C.H. Pope, 1900. (Archive.org
• Pope, Charles. The Plymouth Scrap Book (C. E. Goodspeed & Co., Boston, Mass., 1918)

• Prince, Thomas. A Chronological History of New England (Cummings, Hilliard and Co., 1826)

• Stratton, Eugene Aubrey, FASG. Plymouth Colony Its History & People. The Generations Network, Inc., Provo, Utah: Ancestry Publishing, 1986. Lists sellers https://books.google.com/books/about/Plymouth_Colony.html?id=A0-LoAEACAAJ

• Thacher, James. History of the Town of Plymouth, From Its First Settlement in 1620 (Marsh, Capen & Lyon, Boston, 1832)

• Winslow, Edward. Good Newes From New-England (London, 1624)

• Young, Alexander. Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, from 1602-1625 (C. C. Little and J. Brown, Boston, 1841)

• Bowman, George Ernest. The Mayflower Compact and its Signers. Boston (Massachusetts: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920) link

• https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/mayflower-passengers-list-an-interactive-guide?fbclid=IwAR0ZUt9fd_GetUIWtPcjwmMsJIEYPykSkp1nO-jfDTeHeal3OySO4qJhtBg

• Verburgt, J W. The Pilgrim Fathers in Leiden, Holland. (Leiden, 1970) at Family Search Unsourced but easy to read (52 pages) account of the Pilgrims in Holland. Author was a former archivist of Leiden.

The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (Membership required).

• Source Example:AuthorLastName, AuthorFirstName. ArticleTitle, The New England Historical & Genealogical Register (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Mass., 1847-)

• Anderson, Robert Charles Pilgrim Village Families Sketch: Francis Cooke, New England Historic Genealogical Society.

• Bangs, Jeremy Dupertuis .The Pilgrims and other English in Leiden records: some new Pilgrim documents, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, July 1989, p. 195-214.

• Christensen, Ernest M. "The Probable Parentage of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower," in The American Genealogist, vol. 79 (October 2004): 241-249.

• Davies, Edward J. "The Marriage of Richard Warren of the Mayflower." The American Genealogist. (April 2003) AmericanAncestors.org v. 78, no. 2, p. 81-86. Also online at pdf file includes the text of Augustine Walker's will.

• Fuller, Francis H. "Early New England Fullers," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 55(1901):192-196.
• Fuller, Francis H. "Fullers of Redenhall, England," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 55(1901):410-414.

• Greene, David, L., "Notes on Francis Eaton of Plymouth," The American Genealogist. (Vol 72, Page 305) New Haven, CT: D. L. Jacobus, 1937-. (Online database accessed 28 January 2016. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009 - .)

• Johnson, Caleb, "New Light on the Mayflower Passengers." (Vol 80, Page 94) The American Genealogist. New Haven, CT: D. L. Jacobus, 1937-. Link at AmericanAncestors ($)

• Johnson, Caleb. "The Probable English Origin of Mayflower Passenger Peter1 Browne, and his Association with Mayflower Passenger William1 Mullins", The America Genealogist vol. 79 no. 3 (July 2004):161-165 .
• Johnson, Caleb ; Allen, Sue and Neal,Simon "The English Origin and Kinship of Mayflower Passengers William1 White and Dorothy1 (May) Bradford of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire", The American Genealogist, vol. 89 no. 2 (April 2017):81-94.

• MacGunnigle, Bruce Campbell; Sherman, Robert M.; and Wakefield, Robert S. "Was Matthew Fuller of Plymouth Colony a Son of Pilgrim Edward Fuller?", The American Genealogist 61(1986):194-199.

• Ward, Robert Leigh. 'English Ancestry of Seven Mayflower Passengers,' The American Genealogist (Oct. 1976) 52:203

• Waters ,Henry Fitz-Gilbert "Richard Warren of the Mayflower and some of his Descendants." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1901, Vol. 55:70-78.

Great Migration

• The Great Migration Begins series, published and sold by NEHGS, contain biographies of each Mayflower Passenger and their known children. Often primary source documents are cited as references. There is a subset of the Great Migration Series has been published recently. titled "The Pilgrim Migration". It covers the immigrants to Plymouth Colony and their wives and children.
• Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, 1995)

George Ernest Bowman and Susan Roser

• History of Mayflower Families Through Five Generations Project .pdf download

"George Ernest Bowman, editor of the Mayflower Descendant (1899-1937), had announced in 1899 his idea of tracing both male and female descendants of the Pilgrims down to Revolutionary times. He devoted his years to gathering and publishing source material on the Pilgrims and their descendants but did not publish this as a genealogy. In 1956, a skeleton of his findings of the first three generations, edited by Herbert K. Shaw, was published by the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants as Families of the Pilgrims." Note: Families of the Pilgrims can be borrowed at Archive. Sourcing is not nearly as complete as in the Mayflower Families in Progress.

• Bowman, George Ernest, and Sherman Ruth Wilder. The Mayflower Reader: a selection of articles from The Mayflower descendant Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1978. Google Books Link

• Susan Roser has written a number of well-sourced books on the Mayflower passengers and their descendants. Amazon page containing a list Some are available from the publisher Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD
  • Roser, Susan. Mayflower Births & Deaths (Genealogical Pub. Co., Inc., Baltimore, MD, 1992) 2 vols. Can be Searched at Ancestry .com
  • Mayflower Deeds & Probates (1994)
  • Mayflower Increasings From the Files of George Ernest Bowman, Second Edition, Fourth Printing, Genealogical Publishing, Co., Inc., Baltimore, Md., 2001. Can be Searched at Ancestry .com Available from Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD
  • Mayflower Marriages May 30, 2009
  • Mayflower Passenger References. Ontario, 2011. [http://www.mayflower-passengers.com Mayflower Passengers References website.

• • HELP AID **Finding Your Mayflower Ancestors. Susan Roser. (2004) familyrootspublishing.com

Vital Statistics

Most of the Towns in Massachusetts, have had their vital records published as Vital Records of "Town" Massachusetts to the end of the Year 1849 / to 1850. Doing a search will usually find a 'free' copy.

• Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, in New England: Deeds, &c., 1620-1651. Book of Indian records for their lands, New Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts. General Court, Press of W. White, 1861. Google Book

• The Plymouth Colony Archive Project http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/plymouth/index2.html

• Vital Records of Duxbury, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (Boston, Mass., 1911)

• Plymouth Wills: C.H. Simmons, Jr., Plymouth Colony Records, Volume 1, Wills and Inventories, 1633-1669 (Camden, Maine, 1996)
• TAUNTON: Free Vital Records. eg. Citation. <ref name=TauntonVR>Vital Records of Taunton, Mass to the year 1850. Boston, Massachusetts: NEHGS Vol 1 Births. (1978) Vol. II Marriages (1928); Vol. III Deaths (1929) [URL Vol # p. #]</ref>
  • Taunton, Plymouth: founded 3 Sep 1639. Taunton, Bristol, Plymouth 2 Jun 1685. Taunton, Bristol, Province of Massachusetts Bay, 14 May 1692.

DNA

Mayflower Society DNA Project Family Tree DNA Project administered by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants documenting the Y-DNA of male Mayflower passengers and mtDNA of female Mayflower passengers.

MayflowerDNA.org wiki documents the Y-DNA and mtDNA of Mayflower passengers, their spouses, and the spouses of their children and grandchildren.

Family Genealogies & Family Society Websites

There are numerous published books -- dating from the early 1800s through the day before yesterday -- that present the genealogy of a particular family. Often these sources are the best (or only) information we have to work with regarding an individual or a family group. Unfortunately, however, family genealogies range in quality from superb to horrifyingly bad. Some are even fraudulent. In evaluating the reliability of a particular genealogy, we should consider whether the author cited their sources, and consider whether those cited sources are reliable. In reviewing citations, consider the age of the work. A book published recently should be considered doubtful if it lacks good standard reference citations. However, because 19th-century authors typically did not use modern-style citations, we need instead to look for informal descriptions of where their information came from. Regardless of the citation formats, spot-check their information against those sources you are able to access, to see whether the primary sources validate the information found in the family genealogy. Check the credentials and reputation(s) of the author(s). Consider where and how the work was published. Do not treat the "official" work of a family association as having any special credibility or legal authority over a family's history -- their publications should be evaluated the same way that we would evaluate another author's work. Finally, don't hesitate to ask other WikiTreers (in G2G) for advice regarding the reliability of a particular work.

Societies (some have indexed databases)

• Alden Kindred http://www.alden.org
  • • searchable database (Currently off-line) http://alden.org/aldengenealogy/database/index.htm
• Pilgrim Isaac Allerton Society http://www.isaacallerton.com
• Billngton Family Society (No longer online) https://billingtonfamilysociety.com
• Elder William Brewster Society http://brewsterfamily.org
• Pilgrim Peter Brown Society http://www.pilgrimpeterbrownsociety.org
• Pilgrim James Chilton Chilton Family Genealogy (no longer online) http://www.coltechpub.com/hartgen/htm/chilton.htm
• Pilgrim Francis Cooke Society https://www.pilgrimfranciscookesociety.org
  • • Lineages of Society members https://www.pilgrimfranciscookesociety.org/lineages.php
• Pilgrim Edward Doty Society http://www.edwarddoty.org
  • • searchable database http://www.edwarddoty.org/tng/surnames.php?tree=DOTY
• Eaton Families Association http://www.eatongenealogy.com
• The Fuller Society http://www.thefullersociety.org/index.html
  • • CDs are available for purchase from the Society Historian and ​are available for either Edward or Dr. Samuel descendant lineages.​ The cost of each CD is $15.00. Please indicate Edward or Dr. Samuel lineages.
    • You may also receive the lineage information in PDF form via email for either Edward or Dr. Samuel. The cost of the lineage data via email is $10.00.
• Pilgrim Hopkins Heritage Society http://home.pilgrimhopkins.com
  • • Searchable Database https://pilgrimhopkins.com/lineageHome.php
• Pilgrim John Howland Society http://pilgrimjohnhowlandsociety.org/index.php?bypassCookie=1
• Thomas Rogers Society https://www.thomasrogerssociety.com
  • • Searchable Database http://directory.thomasrogerssociety.com/g1/p1.htm#i1
• Pilgrim Henry Samson Kindred http://pilgrimhenrysamsonkindred.org
• Soule Kindred in America, Inc. https://soulekindred.org
  • • Soule Database access with membership
• Myles Standish Society https://www.mylesstandishsociety.org
  • • searchable database (registration required) https://www.mylesstandishsociety.org/tng/index.php
• The Warren Cousins https://www.facebook.com/thewarrencousins/
• The Pilgrim William White Society http://www.thepilgrimwilliamwhitesociety.org/WhiteFamily.html
• Winslow Heritage Society https://www.winslowheritagesociety.org

Family Genealogies

• Alden, Ebenezer. Memorial of the Descendants of the Hon. John Alden (S.P. Brown, Randolph, Mass., 1867)

• Hall, Ruth Gardiner. Descendants of Governor William Bradford, Through The First Seven Generations (n.p., 1951)

• Jones, Emma C. Brewster. The Brewster Genealogy (Grafton Press, New York, 1908)

• Cook, James. A Genealogy of Families Bearing the Name Cooke, or Cook (Vox Populi Press, Huse, Goodwin & Co., Lowell, Mass., 1882)

• Doty, Ethan. The Doty-Doten Family in America (E.A. Doty, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1897)

• Fuller, William Hyslop. Fuller Genealogy (C.B. Fiske & Co., Palmer, Mass., 1908)

• History and Genealogy of the Hopkins Family in America; James Kimble Young, Jr.,; 1950.

• Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower and Some of His Descendants. Compiled by Timothy Hopkins of San Francisco. Prepared for Publication by Margaret Griffith, California Genealogical Society.

• Howland, Franklyn. A Brief Genealogical and Biographical History of Arthur, Henry, and John Howland (The Author, New Bedford, Mass., 1885)

• White, Elizabeth Pearson. John Howland of the Mayflower (Picton Press, Camden, ME, 1990)

• Stuber, Vera Harpst. "The Rogers Pilgrims and Pioneers A Family History, Ancestors and Descendants of Calvin Otis Rogers". Vera Stuber, 1991.

• G.T. Ridlon Sr. A Contribution to the History, Biography and Genealogy of the Families named Sole, Solly, Soule, Sowle, Soulis (Publisher Lewiston, Me. : Journal press, 1929)

• White, Emma Siggins. Genesis of the White Family (Tiernan-Dart Printing Co., Kansas City, Mo., 1920)

• Ancestral Chronological Record of the William White Family from 1607 to 1608 ...By Thomas White (Jr.), Samuel White https://books.google.com/books?id=NY5bAAAAMAAJ&dq=william%20white%201621&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Bryant, Maria Whitman Genealogy of Edward Winslow (E. Anthony & Sons, Inc, 1915) Reliablity: Almost no sourcing. Facts should be checked.

• Holton, David-Parsons. Winslow Memorial. Family Records of the Winslows and Their Descendants in America (D-P. Holton, M.D., Publisher, New York, 1877) Reliability: Has some sources, wills, probably should be checked with primary records.

Other Books

• Ames, Azel. The May-Flower and Her Log, July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621, https://archive.org/details/mayflowerherlogj00amesuoft

• Anderson, Robert Charles. The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2004. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Pilgrim_Migration_Immigrants_to_Plym.html?id=kbEuswEACAAJ

• Bangs, Jeremy Dupertus, Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners - Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation, General Society of Mayflower Descendants, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 2009 Details from the Leiden, Netherlands archive records for those who came to Plymouth Colony. https://books.google.com/books/about/Strangers_and_pilgrims_travellers_and_so.html?id=kbVPAQAAIAAJ

• Banks, Charles. The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (Genealogical Pub. Co., Baltimore, 1962)

• Deetz, Jim and Trish The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love & Death in Plymouth Colony, http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/plymouth/timeexcerpt.html

• GOODWIN, JOHN A., The Pilgrim Republic: An Historical Review of the Colony of New Plymouth, Boston: Ticknor & Co., 1888. Second edition. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1920 https://archive.org/details/pilgrimrepublich00gooduoft

• Johnson, Caleb H. The Mayflower and Her Passengers. Indiana: Xlibris Corp., 2006. p. 193. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Mayflower_and_Her_Passengers.html?id=1UgA9-szARgC

• Landis, John T. Mayflower descendents and their marriages for two generations after the landing : including a short history of the church of the pilgrim founders of New England, Baltimore, Maryland: Southern Book Co., Baltimore, 1956 .https://books.google.com/books/about/Mayflower_Descendants_and_Their_Marriage.html?id=jYHm1tJH2-gC

• Linday, David. Mayflower Bastard: A Stranger amongst the Pilgrims New York: St. Martins Press, 2002. https://books.google.com/books/about/Mayflower_Bastard.html?id=P0S866grfygC

• Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower: A story of Courage, Community and War. New York: Viking, 2006. p. 40. https://books.google.com/books/about/Mayflower.html?id=qk9AXww_XysC

• Rixford, Elizabeth M. Leach."Families Directly Descended from All the Royal Families in Europe (495-1932) and Mayflower Descendents". Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002.

• Thayer, Elisha. Genealogy of Fourteen Families of the Early Settlers of New England (J. Farmer, Hingham, 1835) Page 9

• Ward and Downey, The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1606-1623 A. D.: As Told by Themselves, Their Friends, and Their Enemies, , 1897 - 634 pages. https://archive.org/details/storyofthepilgri000478mbp

• Wentworth, Dorothy. The Alden Family in the Alden House The story of Alden House and the generations who called it home over a period of over 240 years. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Alden_Family_in_the_Alden_House.html?id=ADgxAAAAMAAJ

• Whittemore, Henry . Our New England Ancestors and Their Descendants, Compiled , New England Ancestral Publishing Co., 1900 https://archive.org/details/ournewenglandanc00whit About William Bradford and related families

• Willison, George. Saints and Strangers has some background material about the Pilgrims' time in Holland, the perilous adventure and the first years of the settlement. https://books.google.com/books/about/Saints_Strangers.html?id=xUKySf-is9IC

• Mayflower Descendants and Their Marriages for Two Generations After the Landing (Bureau of Military and Civic Achievement, Washington, D.C., 1922). This has been updated by Susan Roser's searchable at Ancestry. But the 1922 version is available online at no cost.

Useful Links

• Cyndi's List - Mayflower, Pilgrims & The Plymouth Colony. Links to websites, mailing lists, etc., with a focus on the Mayflower and related topics. Cyndi's List

• Caleb Johnson's list of Mayflower Passengers List of all the passengers, also includes other primary source documentation such as Bradford's History and Plymouth County Records. Caleb Johnson's list

• A website of the Society of Mayflower Descendants They will screen your eligibility for membership (for a fee). List of passengers who are known to have left descendants. Society of Mayflower Descendants

• Pilgrim Village Families Sketches. By Robert Charles Anderson. Short sketches on Mayflower Passengers. Does not require NEHGS membership. Pilgrim Village Families Sketches.

• Fordham University Colonial North America Source Books

• The Genealogical Advertiser Vols. 1 through 7 A quarterly published first in the late 1800's until sometime in the 1930s. Contains probate records of Plymouth Colony, Abstracts from the First Book of Plymouth County, Plymouth County marriages, etc. (Vol. 2 and 3 are also available at Ancestry.com -- but again $$). Access at ebooks for free!

• The Plymouth Colony Archive Project presents a collection of fully searchable texts, including: court records, colony laws, seventeenth century journals and memoirs, probate inventories, wills, town plans, maps, and fort plans; research and seminar analyses of numerous topics; biographical profiles of selected colonists; and architectural, archaeological and material culture studies. This Plymouth Colony Archive Reliability: Excellent - a collection of primary documents.

• Davis, William T.. Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth. Part II: Genealogical Register of Plymouth. Boston, MA, USA: Damrell & Upham, 1899. and Genealogical Register of Plymouth Families (1975 reprint of Ancient Landmarks). Unsourced and badly layed out.

Reliable with Conditions and/or Unreliable Sources

• Find a Grave. Because there were very few recorded burials, and few surviving stones for pre-1700 persons, Find a grave memorials without stones or burial places should not even be added to Mayflower profiles. There are memorial stones, created by later generations, that have been added to find a grave. Linking to these to show the memorial stone is acceptable, but do not necessarily take the information provided, without verifying with a quality, reliable source, in which case the reliable source is a better citation than Find a grave.
• Find a Grave Indexes - Don't use the indexes. Go to Find a Grave and cite that instead.
• Wikipedia. Wikipedia articles can be problematic. Genealogical information in an otherwise well-researched article may not be supported by a source at all or the source may be one that WikiTree would consider unreliable. When citing Wikipedia as a source for parent/child relationship(s), birth, marriage, and/or death information, please include not only a link to the Wikipedia article and date accessed but also the source(s) cited by Wikipedia for genealogical facts from the article.

Unreliable Sources

• User generated trees such as Geni, MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch, Rootsweb, Geneanet, etc. These kinds of sites can be used to find details that can lead to reliable sources. Some trees cite sources that can be used for your profiles when you have checked them out. Never use a user generated tree as source.
• Unsourced or badly sourced gedcom imports.
• Generic repositories: eg. familysearch.org or ancestry.com Why Ancestry and FamilySearch Aren’t Sources
• FamilyTrees, Community Trees, Historical Trees such as those found on FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com and others. These databases may use old and outdated Mayflower applications, older Mayflower 5 Generations books, and other outdated sources. While these trees may be helpful clues, the actual sources that these trees cite are what we use on the Project profiles.
• Conglomerate indexes eg. Millenium Files, Yates Publishing Indexes.
• International Genealogical Index (IGI) (FamilySearch Historical Records) where up to 50 % of the entries are user generated.
• Published books, articles and blogs that do not have sources listed.
• See also Category:Frauds_and_Fabrications

Come back to

• Perkins, Frank Herman and Burbank, Alfred Stevens Handbook of Old Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts: Its History, Its Famous Dead, and Its Quaint Epitaphs (Pilgrim Bookstore (Plymouth, Mass.) Published by A.S. Burbank, Pilgrim Bookstore, 1902) image of John Howland memorial stone p. 51 See also p. 17