The Mayflower

The holiday of Thanksgiving (in the United States) commemorates the survival of the early American pilgrims through their first harrowing year, and their peaceful celebration with the Native Americans. There are many misconceptions and myths about the actual events that started the modern holiday of Thanksgiving, but the trials and tribulations of the colonists were very real. Those intrepid people left a lasting mark on the continent, and their descendants can be found throughout the United States (and around the world) today.

If you can trace your family tree back to these original Americans, then you might be interested in the following online resources for Mayflower genealogy.

• The Mayflower Society
If you have Mayflower passengers in your family tree, you might want to get in touch with this Society. They have plenty of resources and you can make some networking connections that might lead to new tree branches.

• Complete Mayflower Passenger List
Click on any of the passenger names for a brief genealogical snapshot of that person. You can also find further resources for each passenger. This site also offers other genealogy resources here

• Pilgrim Genealogies
You will have to pay for a subscription to Genealogy.com in order to access this database of pilgrim history. Might be worth the expense if you have ancestors from this time period of US history.

• Mayflower Descendants at RootsWeb
As usual, there is a RootsWeb board for this particular aspect of genealogy. This active message board is filled with people looking for more information on their pilgrim ancestry.

• Roots of the Sixty Colonists
Sixty of the colonists are listed here, with their ancestry rather than their descendants. Find out more about the histories of these pilgrims

• Finding Mayflower Families
Not a database, but an excellent article on how to do research on your pilgrim ancestors. Several good books are mentioned, to help further your study.