'It was four hundred years ago today that the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth,

[elleng]

with 102 passengers on board who hoped to begin a new life in America, alongside 30 crew members. The passengers were a mix of Separatist Puritans, seeking the opportunity to live in religious freedom away from the Church of England, and a group of less religious Colonists who were hoping to make their lives and their fortunes in New England. The Separatists called themselves the Saints and the Colonists the Strangers.

This was their third attempt at the journey. Twice before they had been forced to turn back when the Speedwell – a ship bought by the Separatists that was to sail alongside the Colonists’ ship, the Mayflower – began leaking. They were forced to abandon the Speedwell, with 28 passengers moving to the Mayflower and the rest being forced to give up their journey.
The Mayflower eventually set out alone, but the delay meant that they sailed across the Atlantic during the stormy season in a voyage that took sixty-six days. The bad weather caused a terrible crossing – many of the passengers were violently seasick, most could barely stand upright for much of the voyage and one was even washed overboard.

Finally they sighted land – Cape Cod – and despite their attempts to sail on southwards to their intended settlement near the mouth of the Hudson River, the rough weather drove them back. The Mayflower was forced to drop anchor at present-day Provincetown Harbour, considerably further north than their original destination.

As they were no longer settling in the agreed upon territory, divisions began to occur between the groups, with the Colonists saying they “would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them.” To keep order, the Mayflower Compact was drawn up, setting out the rules and regulations everyone was expected to live by, and signed by 41 male passengers of the Mayflower when they were in the waters at Cape Cod. This was the first document to establish self-governance in the New World, an idea that would become central to the founding of the United States.'

(Poster based in Ireland. https://www.facebook.com/PhilippaGregoryOfficial/ )

[CanonRay]

1. My wife's direct line was on the Speedwell

and wound up in Leiden. Didn't get to America until 1629. Funny but the family oral history was that they were "almost " on the Mayflower.

[JDC]

2. I lived in New England and everybody there thinks the all came over on that boat

*edit= Added smiley to ensure all know I'm joking

[GemDigger]

3. There is a lot of truth to that though.

A lot of New Englanders are 14, 15, and even 16th generations.

[csziggy]

4. I have some ancestors that came over on the Mayflower

Some in 1620, others on its later voyages. Some of my ancestors spent years in Leiden (though in most of my old records it is listed as Leyden). A few even married there introducing some Dutch blood along with the mostly English blood of that part of the family.

[DFW]

5. My ancestors.....

....were a jumbled bunch of Eastern Europeans (German Jews to Russians) who came over at various points during the 19th century. Some became deadbeat Mississippi River boat gamblers who fled to the anonymity of New York City to escape their debts, and at least one settled in Charleston, South Carolina and became a poor tailor.

To compensate for intruding in this thread, I have been spending part of my summers in the Provincetown/Truro/Wellfleet area of Cape Cod since 1984! I have surely forgotten more of the history of the place than most descendants ever knew, and have friends who still find Wampanoag and Pamet arrowheads on their farm outside of Wellfleet. I absolutely LOVE that place!

[elleng]

6. Wampanoag and Pamet arrowheads!

THAT would be cool!

[DFW]

7. Most people only see the pretty towns or the beaches

Over the last 35 years, we have made friends with some of the friendly locals, and one lives on a small farm outside of Wellfleet. She showed me some of the old Native American artifacts she and her family had found on the family property over the years.

[bucolic_frolic]

8. I only learned this year

that a Mayflower Pilgrim's niece married my direct ancestor. So even though I was thought of as mostly a 19th century hodgepodge, I go back a bit further in North America. Sadly my parents never knew, even though the genealogy of Mayflower Pilgrims has been well documented for hundreds of years. Ancestry.com was not much help 20 years ago. Now it's all coming together as it, and other websites, and state archives become digitized.

I bet a DNA test about me would be all wrong. I can prove my 6 European links. Has DNA testing been validated against actual known trees from contemporary written records? I doubt it. The categories are so general.