A Mayflower Detour

 

For my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors to research in 2025, the month of February has had one solitary focus: find Delaney Townsend's parents. More than that: find them documented in records, either in her native South Carolina, or in Florida, where she and apparent relatives moved well before 1840. Let's just say I've been riveted to that goal for the entire month—until this weekend, that is.

Weekends are good for setting aside tasks and taking a break, and that is exactly what happened. I'm about to take a detour to research some Mayflower connections. With a text from across the country, my niece informed me that she thinks it is a go for us to apply for membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

For quite some time, I've known that our family should be eligible to apply. The crux of the matter, however, is whether we can come up with adequate documentation to prove our line of descent from John Aldrich and Priscilla Mullins. The sticking point comes when my fifth great-grandfather William Tilson moved from Massachusetts to the southwestern region of colonial Virginia. While there are some tax records and transcriptions of old land records still accessible, there is precious little else that can be found on this family until the line resurfaces in northeastern Tennessee at the beginning of the 1800s.

In a development which would make any genealogist glad to hear, my niece decided to take the initiative to explore what could be done about that paperwork stalemate. She reached out to the Historian in her state's chapter of the Society, with initial paperwork in hand, having gleaned the names and dates from my tree, to see whether this representative thought our application might work. The key was whether anyone else from this line had already presented acceptable research.

Thankfully, there was one applicant from nearly ten years ago who had submitted documentation on this line. I suspect it was a specific third cousin—only genealogists would know these connections—with whom I had been in contact years ago, who I knew had also applied to the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Now, bit by bit, we're forming a multi-generational team to complete our applications. While it will be great to finally be able to complete the process and add our line to the official record, what is even more encouraging is to see the next generation becoming fascinated with all the family stories which years ago had beguiled me into taking a closer look at my family's history.