Researching Your Mayflower Ancestors: Part III: Published Sources: Mayflower Families Through Five Generations and other books published by the Mayflower Society
Alicia Crane Williams
Documenting families and proving lineages has always been a serious
impediment to membership growth in hereditary societies. The first
documented publication of Mayflower-related families was begun in 1899
by George Ernest Bowman of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower
Descendants when he created the periodical, The Mayflower Descendant
(hereinafter MD), which quickly became an industry standard (and is
still being published today). However, the periodical format can only
present bits and pieces in random articles, rather than complete family
accounts.
In the 1930s the General Society of Mayflower
Descendants published a volume (updated in the 1950s to two volumes, and
a third series was begun in 1980 but never completed) titled Mayflower
Index (hereinafter MI), which presented an alphabetic listing of names
of Mayflower descendants and their spouses linked by a numbering system
that allowed the reader to follow backward from any individual to the
Mayflower ancestor. The names in the MI were taken from the lineage
papers of the society with the implication that the lineages were
acceptable and documented, despite the Society’s then practice of
“grandfathering” papers – no documentation was required for the most
recent three generations of each lineage. The MI, itself, gives no
documentation or even dates of birth, marriage, or death, and the
numbering system is often confused with the numbering system of the
lineage papers (each of which is assigned a General Society number and a
State Society number). Despite appearances, it is not possible to take
the numbers from the MI and directly locate the lineage papers relevant
to the individuals in the book.
In 1960 the concept of a
documented genealogy on each of the Mayflower families was developed
into what became known as the “Five Generations Project” (hereinafter
“5G”). “Prime Researchers” were chosen for each of the families and
given the responsibility of documenting and writing a complete genealogy
on the first five generations of descendants (with the birth of the
sixth), which would then be edited and published. These books would
contain complete and accurate information on each family and relieve
applicants of the need to document the first five generations of their
lineage papers.
It took fifteen years to produce the first volume
in the series, and today, 45 years later, the series is still
incomplete, although something has been published on each family. The
overwhelming size of the project led to a revamping in the 1980s.
Initially, the books were all published in hard cover (in a silver
color, thus the books are referred to as the “silver books”) called
Mayflower Families Through Five Generations (hereinafter MF), but the
expense of hard cover publication and the need to publish frequent
updates and additions led to a series of paper cover books (in pink,
referred to as the “pink pamphlets”) called Mayflower Families in
Progress (hereinafter MFIP). The MFIP volumes allowed the authors and
editors to publish “as is” versions of the genealogies and receive
feedback, updates and corrections before publishing the more final
version in hard cover, although revised editions of the hard cover books
have also been done. Further confusion is caused by the fact that each
Prime Researcher was allowed to present their family in a manner of
their choosing (resulting, for example, in some multi-volume families
being divided by child, others by generation). The combined result is a
headache for researchers trying to wend their way through the various
editions and volumes of silver and pink books.
In addition, in
recent years the MFIP series has been expanded to include families whose
original immigrant did not come on the Mayflower, but who married (or
had children or grandchildren marry) a Mayflower passenger – Robert
Bartlett, Richard Church, Philip Delano. Several works of vital records
or other source material have also been published.
To make a long
story short, we will list the current publications for each Mayflower
family. You may find citations to these works on Mayflower lineage
papers and in other publications that may refer to earlier editions and
therefore may need to refer to the index of the version in hand when
using these volumes (and remember that frequent new editions will make
the current citations obsolete in turn). Another quirk is that the
society uses page numbers when citing from the MF books, but numbers of
individuals when citing from the MFIP pamphlets. All of these books are
available from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, P.O. Box
3927, Plymouth, MA 02361; www.mayflower.org.
Alden
MF
16, Part 1, second printing with addenda and errata, 2002: first four
generations of all children of John Alden MF 16, Part 2, 2002: fifth
generation of daughter Elizabeth (Alden) Pabodie, includes addenda and
errata to Part 1 MF 16, Part 3, 2004: fifth generation of sons John,
Jr., Joseph, and Jonathan, includes addenda and errata to Parts 1 and 2
[Part
4, scheduled for release in 2006, will contain the fifth generation of
daughter Ruth (Alden) Bass, and Part 5 will contain the fifth generation
of daughter Rebecca and son David; descendants of Sarah (Alden)
Standish are covered under the Standish family.]
Allerton
MF
17, 1998: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
Robert
Bartlett of the Anne
MFIP, 2nd ed., 2000: four generations;
Robert Bartlett married Mary, daughter of Mayflower passenger Richard
Warren, so this pamphlet duplicates information in MF 18, Part 1 and 2
(see Warren, below), but provides an individual volume on the Bartlett
branch of the Warren family.
Billington
MF
21, 2001: five generations; supersedes earlier version published in MF 5
(with Winslow)
Bradford
MF 22, 2004: five
generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
Brewster
MFIP,
3rd ed. 2000: four generations
MFIP, 1999: Jonathan2 fifth
generation descendants
MFIP, 2001: Patience2 fifth generation
descendants
MFIP, 2003, Love2 fifth generation descendants
Brown
MF
7, 2nd ed., 2002: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
Chilton
MF
15, 1997 (with More): five generations; supersedes earlier version
published in MF 2.
Richard Church
MFIP,1998:
four generations; Richard Church married Elizabeth, daughter of
Mayflower passenger Richard Warren, so this pamphlet duplicates
information in MF 18, Parts 1 and 2 (see Warren, below), but provides an
individual volume on the Church branch of Warren descendants.
Cooke
MF
12, revised ed. 1999: five generations
MFIP, 5th ed., 2000: four
generations updates the MF volume above.
Philip Delano of
the Fortune
MFIP, 2002: four generations
MFIP, Part 1,
5th and 6th generations, 2004: (family numbers 198-367)
Doty
MF
11, Part 1, 1996: five generations through Edward2 and John2
MF 11,
Part 2, 1996: five generations through Thomas,2 Samuel,2 Desire,2 and
Elizabeth2
MF 11, Part 3, 2000: five generations through Isaac,2
Joseph,2 and Mary2
all supersede earlier MFIP editions
Eaton
MF
9, 1996: five generations, supersedes earlier version in MF 1.
Edward
Fuller
MF 4, 2nd ed., 1995: five generations; supersedes
earlier MFIP editions.
Samuel Fuller
MF 10,
1996: five generations, supersedes earlier version in MF 1.
Hopkins
MF
6, 3rd ed., 2001: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
Howland
MF
23, 2005: New – first four generations of all Howland children. This is
the first volume on the Howland family to be produced by the General
Society. Previously, two volumes were independently produced by
Elizabeth Pearson White and published by Picton Press: John Howland of
the Mayflower, Volume 1 through Desire2 Howland and Volume 2 through
John2 Howland, both of which are available through the Mayflower
Society.
More
MF 15 (with Chilton), 1997:
five generations; supersedes earlier version in MF 2.
Priest
MF
8, 1994: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
Rogers
MF
19, 2000: five generations; supersedes earlier version in MF 2
Samson
MF
20, Part 1, 2000: first four generations of all Samson children;
supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
MF 20, Part 2, 2005: fifth
generation descendants of son James2 Samson and daughters Dorcas
(Samson) Bonney, ---
- (Samson) Hanmore, Hannah (Samson) Holmes, and
Elizabeth (Samson) Sprout
Soule
MFIP, 4th ed.
2002: four generations supersedes MF 3 for these generations
MFIP,
Part 1, 5th and 6th generations, 2000: (numbers 230-349), supersedes MF 3
for these families
MFIP, Part 2, 5th and 6th generations, 2002:
(numbers 350-464), supersedes MF 3 for these families
MFIP, Part 3,
5th and 6th generations, 2003: (numbers 465-551), supersedes MF 3 for
these families
MF 3, 1980: five generations, but has been superseded
through page 238 by all of the above, and future MFIP pamphlets will
eventually completely replace the MF 3 volume.
Standish
MF
14, 1997: five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
Warren
MF
18, Part 1, 3rd ed., 2004: four generations of all Warren children;
supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
MF 18, Part 2, 1999: fifth
generation of Mary,2 Anna,2 and Elizabeth2
MF 18, Part 3, 2001:
fifth generation of Abigail,2 Nathaniel2, and Joseph2
White
MF
13, 2nd ed., 2002: five generations; supersedes earlier version in MF
1.
Winslow
MF 5, 2nd ed., 1997 (with John
Billington): five generations; supersedes earlier MFIP editions.
There
is inevitable “cross over” among these volumes where descendants of two
passengers have married but their descendants may be continued only in
one volume. For example, Myles Standish’s granddaughter, Sarah Standish,
married Benjamin Soule, a grandson of passenger George Soule. The Soule
descendants are continued in the Soule MF and MFIP volumes, but not in
the Standish volume. On the other hand, Myles’s son Alexander Standish
married John Alden’s daughter Sarah, and their descendants appear in
both the Standish and Alden MF volumes (although in the Alden volume
only for four generations).
Unfortunately, no master index to all
volumes is available, but it is well worth the time for researchers in
search of Mayflower connections to check their list of ancestors against
all the individual volumes.
The scholarship published in the
Mayflower “5G” volumes is the best available at the time of publication,
but ongoing research may disprove or add lines, or the line may be
circumstantial or suggested pending further research. The fact that any
particular line appears in one of these volumes does not guarantee
acceptance by the Historian General for the purposes of membership.