Giving Thanks at FTF

Signing of the Mayflower Compact
from the Library of Congress

My next post is up at Family Tree Firsts. All about….wait for it…. The Mayflower!  You know I couldn’t resist.  It is that time of the year after all.

I have written several times about learning from my grandmother that we were from “those Pilgrims.”  Several times I have even told you about my application process with the GSMD.  Well, this week is when those stories and dreams are realized.  I have the last pieces of documentation in my hand to prove her tales and hopefully by this time next week it will all be in the mail.  Then I can concentrate on my husband’s multiple lines.  I only have the one line since my family left Massachusetts by the 3^rd generation after settling here, my husband’s family on the other hand stuck around for a while.  300 years  in New England is a while right?  He has 4 potential lines if I can prove them beyond a doubt.

What makes me even more excited is that members of my family are excited too.  I even have cousins of my mother-in-law helping me with their family lines.  Collaboration at its best!  Without their help this would have been a longer process with more costs for me.  Since we are sharing documents, records, and sources with each other we all benefit from on another’s resources. 

Best of all, my oldest got on the bus this morning with his Mayflower ancestors extra credit report.  We had the best time putting it all together.  He looked up their names on the internet, wrote a ½ page about each of them, added some pictures from wikicommons, and by the end of it had a basic understanding of a pedigree chart.  He was so excited to take it to school and show everyone.  In particular to show it to the kids who didn’t believe him.

 

 

Yes, there was some teasing.  Kids are kids right?  My son is very sensitive to others and I was happy the teasing from unbelieving children made him more resolved to prove them wrong.  That would be the desire to become a historian showing through I think.  Now, it would be great if I could get him to have the same drive when it comes to studying math.

Having this last document also proves my first ancestor for the DAR.  I am up over a dozen patriots on both sides of my family.  My mom and dad are tied with patriot ancestors, and at times I wonder if there is a bit of competition between the two of them.  I sometimes wonder if when I call do they get all excited about another one being found to pull them in the lead for the ancestor count?

As I stated in the post at FTF I am submitting William Hayden as my first patriot.  I can also put in for his son Noah as he fought along with his father in the war.  In fact, 5 of William’s sons fought in the Revolution:  John, Stephen, Enoch, Noah, and Hosea.  Enoch and Noah were twins too, but I haven’t figured out if they were identical or not.  In an out of print Magazine called  The Hayden Family I found an interesting description of what William did during the Revolution in Volume 1, No. 3, page 102:

 

 

We also know he died after working on his farm one afternoon in July of 1823 thanks to a poem written after his death.  I have not found a pension record for him or his son Noah; I hope to uncover more about their family’s service in the Revolution.  Oh, and find out where the Fredericksburg Magazine was.  That would be a worthy field trip to take.  Maybe on my next run to the grocery store.