Published: November 10, 2008 04:11 pm         

Locals can trace lineage to Mayflower

Nancy Bier of Lake Kiowa ties into Mayflower ancestry through a cousin who came through the Mason line. Bier is a Genealogy Consultant and leads tours to the British Isles.

The Mayflower sailed out of Plymouth, England with 102 passengers and the crew on board and headed for the New World on Sept. 6, 1620. The ship was at sea approximately two months before it anchored near Cape Cod on Nov. 11. That was 388 years ago.

You may not have checked the Mayflower Passenger List lately, but your own ancestor’s may come from stock that can be traced back to that early American event.

Bier took one tour group to the village of Scooby, England. This village parrish is where a large percentage of the Mayflower passengers lived before leaving for the New World. The tour group visited the village church which has commemortion plaques for many of the adult Mayflower passengers.

The tour group stood on a stone bridge outside Scooby, where the local tour guide told them that back in the old days there was a river beneath the bridge and the passengers took a boat toward the sea to eventually hook up with the Mayflower.

Honey Easter, another local, is a decendent of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley who came across on the Mayflower. Easter’s sister found the story of John Howland in a small obscure book in a genealogy library. According to the journal of the Mayflower captain, John Howland, a twenty-five year old man, came up on deck during a storm. When the ship suddenly rolled, he fell overboard. Fortunately, he grabbed a rope from one of the topsails before he sank way down into the ocean. The Mayflower’s crew was able to haul him back up to the surface with the rope and then grabbed him with a boathook.

Elizabeth Tilley weathered the voyage but her parents died the first winter in the New World, leaving her an orphan at age 13. She married John Howland several years later.

Easter said that her family and relatives got a big kick out of the Howland overboard story and that exploring genealogy and histories of her ancestors makes her own personal history more meaningful.

The Mayflower voyage met with agreeable weather the first part of the journey, although seasickness and life on a ship in the middle of the ocean back in the 1600’s was no modern cruise. Later, the weather turned mean and ugly.

Passengers of all ages were on the Mayflower. One baby was born during the voyage. His parents, Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins, named him “Oceanus.” Two more babies were born shortly after the ship arrived in the New World.

The Mayflower remained with the Piligrims several months but departed for England in April 1621.

More information about the Mayflower and the Mayflower Passenger List can be found on Mayflowerhistory.com and similar websites. Many museums and societies, such as the General Societyof Mayflower Descendants, the Pilgrim Hall Museum and the Pilgrim John Howland Society can also be contacted for more information on the Mayflower and it’s passengers.