And That Makes Five

Stretching from Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins through the surnames I've covered—Pabodie, Bartlett, Murdock, and Tilson—we've made the stretch through the first five generations, precisely the number of generations confirmed in the Mayflower Society's "Silver Books."

From this point on, we're untethered from the assurance that we are on the right genealogical path. To join the ranks of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, I'll have to snap to and assure the accuracy of each documented step along the generational way. Though I'm fairly certain of my research accuracy, this is still a terrifying moment. Like Wile E. Coyote gone over the edge of the cliff.

The difficulty with researching William Tilson—that grandson who so fortunately inherited his grandfather John Murdock's farm in Massachusetts, but then abruptly moved to the far reaches of Virginia—is that this was not the only time this William made such a radical move. According to The Tilson Genealogy, the Massachusetts native spent his earlier years ranging as far as Nova Scotia as well as southwest Virginia.

William Tilson apparently served during the "French War," but presumably returned home to Plympton after discharge from service in December, 1761. It was in Plympton, after all, that he married Mary Ransom just a few months later in April of the next year.

Apparently, when William entered the service in March of 1759, he was barely eighteen years of age. Considering he inherited the farm when his grandfather died in the fall of 1756, that would have placed William then at fifteen—not a bad set up for a young man of that age. Perhaps that explains the note I found in The Tilson Genealogy mentioning a legal action taken in October of the same year in which John Murdock passed: William granted his father, Stephen Tilson, as "guardian" of the property he had inherited from his grandfather.

On the other hand, perhaps that detail only plants another question in my mind: what did happen to that farm after it was handed down to the fifteen year old grandson of John Murdock? And was it something that served to drive the younger Tilson away from his community?

At any rate, the next step in my attempt to document my connection with Mayflower passengers takes us far from that Massachusetts colony of the Pilgrims' landing—much farther than the minor move from Plymouth to Plympton. The next location to seek records needs to be the Virginia settlement known as Saint Clair, a place not found on the map today, and variously identified as part of more than one county in current-day Virginia.

Not only does the next generation take us far afield from Massachusetts, it also removes us from the tidily-ascertained five verified generations since the pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620.  

Above: "Landing of the Puritans in America," 1883 oil on canvas by Spanish artist Antonio Gisbert Pérez; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

According to his Will

It is probably a good thing that the will of Benjamen Bartlett was drawn up in 1717, after his daughter Ruth had already married. One simple mention of that detail in his will allows us to connect the names of Ruth's parents with her married surname, Murdock. Thus, we are provided with the stepping stone to advance us to the next generation in this procession from Mayflower passengers John Alden and Priscilla Mullins through their daughter Elizabeth Alden Pabodie, their granddaughter Ruth Pabodie Bartlett, and now their great-granddaughter Ruth Bartlett Murdock.

From that point, it was a will which provided the next generational step, as well. When Ruth Bartlett Murdock's husband John drew up his will before his passing in 1756, he referred not only to his wife and children, but remembered one particular grandson—as the Elizabeth Alden genealogy put it, "grandson Tillson," the son of Stephen Tillson—to whom he gifted his farm.

That "Tillson," of course, handily directs us to the next generation in our journey from the Mayflower's landing to our times. John Murdock and his wife, the former Ruth Bartlett, had among their children one daughter who had married said Stephen Tilson. Her name has been referenced variously as Janet, Jennet, or Jeannette.

It was during this generation, incidentally, that though the property in Plympton, Massachusetts, was provided to him, Stephen Tilson's eldest son was soon found to be settled and raising his own family, not in Plympton—not even in Massachusetts—but far to the west in Virginia.

Of course, that brings up the question: what happened? Why, if provided for with this bequest of property, did he marry in Plympton, yet move so far away to settle and raise his own family? To answer that, we need to shift from the resources provided in the Alden genealogy to a separate recounting of the family history of the Tilson line. And even there, we'll need to read between the lines, for the legal records only document the basic outline of the story.
 

Above: "Embarkation of the Pilgrims," 1857 oil on canvas by American artist Robert Walter Weir; courtesy Google Art Project via Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Googling for Colonial Significance

It is certainly a different world, plying my genealogical research craft to the world of colonial ancestors instead of scouring passenger lists for American immigrants of the late 1800s. Still, that doesn't necessarily mean I must resign myself solely to dusty archives or crumbling documents. As I traced one of my lines to the granddaughter of Mayflower passengers John and Priscilla Alden, I couldn't help but notice how many results came up when I took those colonial names and plugged them into the search bar at Google. Old World meets New.

It seems incredible that names like Richard Warren (Mayflower passenger) or Love Brewster (son of William Brewster) would be on the tip of the tongue of twenty first century Americans. And, in case you missed my tongue firmly planted in cheek, those names aren't. Yet, a quick search revealed that each of them has a Wikipedia entry. Somebody knew about them. And thought somebody else might be interested.

Perhaps arrival on the Mayflower conferred a sort of "street cred" among colonials. Names of those early arrivals were noted by someone, obviously, but I wondered how my luck would hold out if I tried searching for the next generation.

Using the 1897 publication by Mrs. Charles L. Alden, Elizabeth (Alden) Pabodie and Descendants, as our unofficial guide (for my final bid to become a member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, of course I'll need to align with what has been verified in the "Silver Books"), we left off yesterday with John and Priscilla's granddaughter, Ruth Pabodie Bartlett.

She and her husband, Benjamin Bartlett, likely had nine children. This, though, may be difficult to verify as a complete list, for apparently there have been issues in which listings of Benjamin Bartlett's children may have been confused with those of Samuel Bartlett. The Elizabeth Pabodie author limits her list to those children gleaned solely from mention in Benjamin's will.

In particular, for our purposes, we are interested in Ruth and Benjamin's daughter Ruth. Born in Duxbury, Massachusetts, where the Alden and associated families moved after adhering to their seven-year obligation to the Plymouth colony, the younger Ruth eventually married John Murdock, son of the elder John Murdock and his wife Lydia Young.

While the earlier Mayflower generations provided me with names easily found on sites like Wikipedia, subsequent generations didn't carry as much historical gravitas, apparently, for while I can locate several ancestral names from this portion of my lineage, they are more likely to be found on genealogy websites than general interest pages.

Still, I can find information, thanks to Google—requiring further independent verification, of course—everywhere from the "Memories" section of FamilySearch.org to the online database listing the descendants of John and Priscilla Alden, provided by the Alden Kindred of America. That organization, interestingly enough, claims as one of its founding members—and treasurer—a gentleman by the name of Charles L. Alden, a name which we've seen affixed to a particular genealogy book of Alden descendants.

None of this I would have known if I hadn't decided to try my hand at Googling some of my ancestors' names. Granted, if there wasn't the cachet of being people associated—even several generations removed—with the landing of the Mayflower, perhaps these names wouldn't have been as ardently sought after. It's the demand that created the supply in this case. But I'm glad for access to that supply thanks to Google, nonetheless.

Above: The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, by British-born American marine painter William Formby Halsall in 1882; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Where There's One, There Will be More

Much as I learned when I researched the family line entitling me to membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, the likelihood of being related to more than one individual bestowing membership privileges in a lineage society is quite possible. And now, just as I learned back then in my DAR application, the same may apply to membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

Yesterday, I mentioned descending from Elizabeth, the oldest child of John and Priscilla Alden. As the oldest child of one of the first Mayflower couples married in the New World, Elizabeth also achieved the status of being the first white woman born in the New England colony.

From the time of Elizabeth's 1623 birth until the time of her 1644 marriage, there had been other ships arriving in the New England area including, presumably, the one upon which her future husband William Pabodie arrived. William was noted as being from the colony of Duxbury, a locale near Plymouth colony incorporated in 1637 after the original Mayflower settlers were released from their contractual obligation to remain in a tight-knit community for the first seven years after their landing. Eventually, as the colonists spread out to establish farms in the area, the Alden family also had moved to Duxbury.

One genealogy of Elizabeth's descendants, drawn up over one hundred years ago, provides details of the thirteen children born to Elizabeth and her husband, William Pabodie. For our purposes, the one we are interested in following next is their eighth child, Ruth.

Ruth, born to Elizabeth and William in 1658, married at a young age in 1673 a man by the name of Benjamin Bartlett. Here we see one Mayflower descendant marrying another Mayflower descendant—not a surprising occurrence, considering we are by this point barely over fifty years out since the landing of the Mayflower. The matter of the close-knit community compounds the possibility.

As the 1897 Elizabeth Alden genealogy put it, Ruth's intended was son and namesake of Benjamin Bartlett and Sarah Brewster Bartlett. Looking even further into Benjamin's own genealogy, now we begin to see more names we recognize from that list of the original Mayflower passengers:

He was grandson of Robert Bartlett who...married Mary, daughter of Richard Warren, a "Mayflower" pilgrim. He was also grandson of Love and Sarah (Collier) Brewster, and great-grandson of Elder William and Mary (  ) Brewster, who also came in the "Mayflower."

So technically, by virtue of this marriage of John and Priscilla Alden's granddaughter (and one of my ancestors) Ruth to Benjamin Bartlett, I can also say I am a descendant of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren, plus William Brewster and his wife, as well.

Above: Drawing, 1904, by Alfred Stevens Burbank, representing Elder William Brewster, published in 1911 in A. C. Addison's The Romantic Story of the Mayflower Pilgrims and Its Place in the Life of Today; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.   

What the Silver Books Tell Me

It all comes down to what is in the Silver Books. If you want to start on the journey to discover whether you descend from any of the passengers on the Mayflower, you have to start by demonstrating a direct line connection to one of the people listed in those books.

That's what the two members manning the GSMD exhibit at a recent genealogical conference assured me: it all has to check out with the Silver Books. And, of course, you have to present a credible paper trail between your line and those documented in the Mayflower Society's Silver Books.

Since my alleged Mayflower ancestors were supposed to be John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, I thought it would be a wise step to see where I could access those Silver Books. While I certainly am eager to attain membership status in the Society, I'm not sure I'm as eager to part with my hard-earned money in springing for purchase of those books. In my mind, they are hardcover tomes exacting a respectable purchase price.

My go-to response: look it up online. Yes, I know I can drive ninety miles to the Oakland office of the California Mayflower Society—and I will likely do that, before this project is over. But I could just as easily check it out by searching through the main website of the General Society.

When I did, though, it was cause for a slight adrenaline rush: many of the volumes were listed as "out of stock"—whether "temporarily" or "indefinitely" or, more ominously, "out of stock" with no qualifying explanation whatsoever. What was that supposed to mean?

Fortunately, my search style involves clicking on links and wandering around until I find an answer I like. Somehow, I found my way to a file entitled "Guide to the Multi-Part Volumes of the GSMD Silver Book Series." There, thankfully starting alphabetically with the very entry I was seeking, was an explanation of the five part series devoted specifically—and solely—to the descendants of John and Priscilla Alden.

Part One, itself, covered the first four generations. Considering John and Priscilla had nine children who had descendants, there was a lot of material to cover, and the continuation of that file outlined which volumes covered which descendants' lines. I've already seen, from other genealogies, that my line descended from John and Priscilla's daughter Elizabeth, so I already know I would also need to see Part Two of the Alden set.

Of course, there are other resources detailing the generations following John and Priscilla Alden.  For instance, the Wikipedia entry for Priscilla Alden includes a listing of their children. The Wikipedia article also links to an article about their daughter Elizabeth, where a footnote mentions the 1897 volume by Mrs. Charles L. Alden, Elizabeth (Alden) Pabodie and Descendants.

The question, though, is whether they are as "impeccably" reliable as the Silver Books are said to be. For now, I'm happy to use the less-than-perfect as my thumbnail sketch of Elizabeth Alden's descendants on the route to Mayflower Society membership. In good time, those researchers' work will be tested by the genealogists who thoroughly examine such claims in membership applications to their Society.

Above: "The Bridal Procession" of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, illustration from the 1886 publication of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.