Recently (as of 2015), the Mayflower Society invoked a new policy stating that all applications must have FULL documentation (birth, marriage, death records) of the applicant and the two generations (parents, grandparents) above the applicant. This mandate simply implies that documentation in the modern age for parents and grandparents are obtainable, and with the increase in divorces over the last 60 years, this information is incredibly important in order to maintain good lineage records.
I had some confusion when I read the new form. The statement on the application form is as follows:
My confusion came from the lack of specifically stating that birth and death documentation is also required for parents and grandparents of the spouses of the line-carrier (line-carrier means the bloodline leading directly to the Mayflower ancestor). It’s required for everyone else. So I gave them a call to clarify and here’s the answer:
1. For the applicant you need:
Birth, marriage and any divorces
2. For the applicant’s mother AND father you need:
Birth records for each, marriage and any divorces, and death (for those deceased).
3. For applicant’s grandmother and grandfather you need:
Birth records for each, marriage and any divorce documents, and death documents (for those deceased).
4. So to clear this up, you DO NOT need parents and grandparents information on the NON-LINE-CARRIER (husband or wife that does not have a direct bloodline Mayflower ancestor that you are submitting YOUR connection to).
So, in total, without any divorces, you, as the applicant, will be submitting about 12 documents (in triplicate) just for yourself and two generations back. Of course the rest of the documentation further back needs to be collected in a type that is acceptable to PROVE your lineage.
DO NOT FORGET THAT ALL DOCUMENTS MUST BE SUBMITTED IN TRIPLICATE (that means three of each)
DON’T STAPLE YOUR DOCUMENTS – USE PAPERCLIPS TO KEEP THE TRIPLICATES TOGETHER
ORDER THE DOCUMENTS LIKE THIS: BIRTH, MARRIAGE, DEATH FOR EACH PERSON AND YOU DON’T NEED TO SUBMIT SIX MARRIAGE DOCUMENTS ON THE TWO MARRIED PERSONS.
I won’t get into the average processing/approval timelines that it takes for the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, or the individual State Societies. These entries are relative only to my application process.
As of March 2015, I was quoted by the Mayflower Society in Plymouth, Massachusetts, that the current application review time is: 3 MONTHS
Review time means THEIR review for certification AFTER your state society approves your lineage.
I’m writing this as my application is in it’s 9th month and I thought that I should reflect some thoughts as to its progress since the moment I know that I found my “holy grail” of documents that brought more than three years of intensive research to a point where I could make a confident submission.
The first thing that I would like to say is that my application relates to a family lineage that ended in 1759. That is the year where the Mayflower Society last listed this family’s lineage as noted in the official Mayflower “Silver Books” entitled “Mayflower Families Through Five Generations (Vol. 16, Pt. 2: John Alden)”, and in “Mayflower Families Through Five Generations (Vol. 16, Pt. 1: John Alden). So doing some simple math, this year being 2014, that makes this “lost lineage” over 255 years forgotten, or just not pursued.
Again, my official application was approved by my chosen state society’s Historian, that of the State of Connecticut. Why Connecticut? Simply because that is where I was born, as well as my three brothers and three sisters, and my father. My mother was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts. So the choice of which state you choose is entirely up to you….I have roots in Connecticut. To reiterate, you can live in Michigan and still file your application through the State of Missouri Mayflower Society. You do have to chose a state though.
I do know that I’m writing out of sequence, but that’s fine. My original submission to the state society was in August of 2013. I took painstaking measures to ensure that I sent primary documentation, in triplicate, to my state Historian. I guess that part paid off as within two or three weeks I was notified that the State Society had approved me and my application was enroute to the General Society for final approval.
In November 2013, and of course it had to be Thanksgiving week, I was reluctantly informed via email by the Connecticut Society Historian that my application was denied in Plymouth by the Historian General. I was rather distraught – I took the time to read what was required to prove a lineage, and I followed those rules to a “t”.
Well, after I submitted a rather insistent email back to my state Historian, stating that I was very disappointed with the denial. The denial included ambiguous references to “other possibilities” of parentage of one person or another, AND to my further dismay referenced “even someone else on the website Ancestry.com has another person listed” instead of who I have listed. Well, I just couldn’t believe that a “professional” historian was using a vague reference to an unidentified USER of the website Ancestry.com as support to a denial.
So the State Historian rechecked my submitted paperwork and informed me that we should attempt to resubmit with more clarity on at the point of dispute. I resubmitted via email the documentation that I knew would clearly explain my proposed lineage to the “Silver Book” references. This re-submission was concluded within one week of my denial, in November 2013.
In January or February of 2014, I emailed the State Historian and asked for a status check. I was informed that the General Society had not yet completed their research. I was, again, a bit concerned as there could be little to no mistake that the documentation made the required connection. So I waited another two months and then I planned a trip (vacation) to Plymouth, Massachusetts for several reasons. Mainly, I wanted to visit Carver, Lakeville, Bridgewater, and other locations in Massachusetts and personally see where my ancestors lived. I wanted to visit the local libraries, and also to meet my fourth cousin (once removed), Wayne Dunham in South Carver.
On June 1, 2014, eight months after my re-submission, I departed Florida enroute via automobile to Carver, Massachusetts.
Without writing about the details of my trip in this post, I will simply state that I met with senior Historians at the Mayflower General Society on 16 and 17 June, 2014, and on 18 June 2014 the Mayflower General Society had approved my family’s lineage to Deacon William Brewster, Mayflower Passenger and leader of the pilgrim faith.
I can’t express how gratifying this approval by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants was. This endeavor that I undertook years earlier carries with me today a sense of each individual in my bloodline all the way back to 1620, and before. It gives me a realization of what it took to achieve their hopes and dreams. It especially makes me keenly aware that hundreds of years of sacrifice can not be ignored, forgotten, or simply given up, or given away without a fight. Because they didn’t give up – for us.