Out Of My Tree: To Be A Pilgrim

The Mayflower II, a full-size replica of the 1620 Mayflower, built in 1956. (Wikimedia Commons)

Four hundred years ago today a group of people from my home district began a voyage that shaped the future of the world. They travelled on a ship called the Mayflower. On both side of the Atlantic communities are commemorating this anniversary, one of the major moments in the birth of the USA. The covid pandemic has severely effected the commemorations but many are taking place online, and videos have been produced to tell the story of the Mayflower, its impact on Native American communities and how it effected the course of history.

First, some definitions: SEPARATISTS – Christians in England who didn’t follow the established Protestant or Catholic churches (some became known as Puritans); PILGRIMS – (in the context of the Mayflower) Separatists who fled persecution in England and set up a church in Holland, this includes those who didn’t travel on the Mayflower or settle in America; STRANGERS – Mayflower passengers who weren’t members of the Separatist church in Holland and who were looking for a new life in America.

Those of us with a personal connection to the Mayflower story don’t use the term Pilgrim Father. There were Pilgrim Mothers and Children as well. We prefer the terms Mayflower Pilgrims and Mayflower Passengers.

About 10 million US citizens and around 1 million non-Americans are descended from Mayflower passengers. For Americans, showing an ancestor was on the Mayflower is like a European finding a royal descent. Some Americans have both.

On the anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival at Plymouth Rock in December I’ll present the results of a huge project I’ve been researching over the past two years. It will consist of a pdf giving a more detailed explanation of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims with tables and family trees of the Mayflower, Pilgrim and Separatist ancestors of many members of the lgbt community. Today I want to concentrate on my own links to the Mayflower.

My own links can be summarised in three points: 1) most of my ancestors came from the same area of Nottinghamshire as many of the Pilgrims; 2) for six years I worked at Gainsborough Old Hall, one of the places where some Separatists are known to have worshipped; and 3) one of my ancestors may have been a cousin of William Bradford, a leader of the Mayflower Pilgrims and Governor of Plymouth Colony.

Below is a part of a map printed in 1610. This is as near as we can get to seeing what Nottinghamshire looked like when the Pilgrims lived there. The thick grey line is the county border. It has changed slightly since then. For example, the area at the top with the villages called Akely and Finnyngley (now Auckley and Finningley) are now in South Yorkshire.

I’ve marked several places on the map. Bautre, now Bawtry (pronounced Bor-tre), is also now in South Yorkshire. Just below it is Scrobye, the old name for Scrooby, the village where the Mayflower leader, William Brewster, came from. Mysterton (Misterton) is where I was raised and where many of my ancestors lived. Gainsborough (Ganesburgh) is where the Old Hall is located.

Having so many of my father’s ancestors born in the area I often wondered if I was related to any of the Mayflower Pilgrims. I began researching my family tree in 1978 and it was only last year that I discovered that I might be.

Last year I was sorting out my Norton ancestry, trying to prove if I was related to or descended from an Elizabethan Catholic rebel leader called Richard Norton (2019 was the 450th anniversary of his rebellion). It turns out I was descended from him through his son John. Once I established that fact I found that John’s wife, and also therefore my ancestor, was Jane Morton (Morton, Norton, very confusing) from a landed family in Bawtry.

For several centuries researchers have been looking into the family backgrounds of all the Mayflower passengers and their families. One of the later Pilgrims was called George Morton, and his ancestry has been the subject of much debate ever since.

George Morton (c.1587-1624) was described as a merchant from Yorkshire. He was a member of the Separatist church in Holland and he sailed to join his fellow Pilgrims in 1623. There’s no record of his birth or baptism. There is record of his marriage in 1612 to fellow Separatist Priscilla Carpenter in Holland. A lot of family historians believe George was the son of another George Morton, who in turn was the son of Jane Morton’s cousin (see the family tree below for clarification). It’s possible, but there isn’t enough documentary evidence to prove it. But records show that this other older George married in 1591. It is possible for Pilgrim George to have been born in 1592 and 20 years old when he married, but there’s no record to prove he has any link to Bawtry.

What is more intriguing is that my ancestor Jane Morton may have had a niece called Alice Morton, who is often quoted online as being the daughter of Jane’s brother Robert. Records show an Alice Morton of Bawtry marrying William Bradford of Austerfield (in Yorkshire, half a mile north of Bawtry, not shown on the 1610 map) in 1551. We don’t have any birth of baptism entry for Alice, but this William Bradford has been proven to be the grandfather of Mayflower Pilgrim William Bradford.

As far as I’m concerned that on the evidence so far there’s more likelihood of me being related to William Bradford than George Morton. Incidentally, these two men were married to sisters Priscilla and Alice Carpenter.

The lack of documentary evidence, a paper trail proving either the Bradford or Morton link, is frustrating. It might take another 41 years to find it!