About Janet

Whether you think the name Janet sufficiently old fashioned enough to belong to a child born in 1711, that—sometimes with its alternate spelling as Jennet—is exactly what happened.

Not only did it happen, but apparently The Mayflower Society has officially recognized it as such. At least, that’s according to the surname supplement added to the back of the volume known as Tilson-Tillson Descendants: A Supplement to the Tilson Genealogy (1911) by Mercer V. Tilson.

Now that I’ve finally figured out how to access the ebook version for myself—it’s on loan from the Boston Public Library via InternetArchive—I discovered the book’s committee was authorized to include “memoranda accepted by the Mayflower Society.”

According to that “memoranda,” The Mayflower Society “recognizes the following” line of descent. I’ll give you the Readers Digest version, stopping at the generation from which I descend. Among the first generation of passengers arriving on the Mayflower was John Alden. His daughter, Elizabeth Alden, marked the second generation. Elizabeth married William Pabodie, and their daughter Ruth, born June 7, 1658, in Duxbury, Massachusetts, became the third generation. That Ruth, marrying Benjamin Bartlett, had a daughter whom she named after herself. The fourth generation’s Ruth Bartlett married John Murdock.

Ah, Murdock! Now you sense the connection is close. And it is: the fifth generation brings Janet Murdock, born in Plymouth on December 10, 1711.

That is the Janet Murdock who married Stephen Tilson of my Tilson line—and for whom the Janet Tilson, her granddaughter and supposed wife of Joseph Cole over whose identity we have been struggling for the past few days, was named.

Whether the original woman was named Janet or Jennet, or whether the surname was spelled Murdock or Murdoch, you’ve got to admit: she’s got quite a heritage.

And that makes me a Mayflower descendant! Now what do I do? I haven’t even managed to complete my application to Daughters of the American Revolution!

Above: Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, "The Mayflower Compact 1620," oil on canvas representing passengers of the Mayflower signing the Compact, including Carver, Winston, Alden, Myles Standing, Howland, Bradford, Allerton and Fuller; courtesy United States Library of Congress via Wikipedia; in the public domain in those countries with a copyright term of life of the artist plus eighty years or less.