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The internet is just amazing. My grandmother was the one interested in genealogy, until I came along, and she worked for years to prove a connection between her Washburns and Francis Cooke, of the Mayflower. When she finally found the proof, and got a letter of congratulations from someone at the Mayflower society, she xeroxed the letter and sent it in triumph to the whole family. *g* It was a big deal because she'd been working on it for so long by snail mail. She cared a lot about connecting to the Mayflower. She could have connected to the Daughters of the American Revolution, she told me once, but she didn't give a hoot about them. I don't know why. I guess she admired settlers more than soldiers?
At any rate, my mother, when she was engaged to my dad, had a conversation with her future father-in-law (whom she always saw as rather pompous) where he informed her loftily that she was marrying a man descended from a Mayflower passenger. "Oh, that's interesting," she was able to say, because of her mother's research, "I'm descended from two." Hee. Not that Mom cared; but any ancestry has always been of interest to me, so I was grateful for my now deceased grandmother's work.
Decades ago, still before the internet (largely), I paid a visit to Plimouth Plantation or whatever they call that historical reinactment site. While there I bought an extrememly expensive book about the descendants of Francis Cooke, knowing I'd care about it when I had time to do genealogy research. I opened it for the first time last night, planning to check the info I had gotten at ancestry.com against what was in the book. In passing, the writer of the book mentioned that a woman one of the Washburns married was a descendant of another Mayflower passenger, William Brewster. What, what? How cool. So I settled in with the internet and ancestry.com last night, and within two hours I had her connection to William Brewster documented.
Two hours.
It took my grandma seven years.
So today, I have a feeling of accomplishment, but it's probably not quite like the jubilation she felt. *g* I wish she could have lived to do genealogy research on the internet.
At any rate, my mother, when she was engaged to my dad, had a conversation with her future father-in-law (whom she always saw as rather pompous) where he informed her loftily that she was marrying a man descended from a Mayflower passenger. "Oh, that's interesting," she was able to say, because of her mother's research, "I'm descended from two." Hee. Not that Mom cared; but any ancestry has always been of interest to me, so I was grateful for my now deceased grandmother's work.
Decades ago, still before the internet (largely), I paid a visit to Plimouth Plantation or whatever they call that historical reinactment site. While there I bought an extrememly expensive book about the descendants of Francis Cooke, knowing I'd care about it when I had time to do genealogy research. I opened it for the first time last night, planning to check the info I had gotten at ancestry.com against what was in the book. In passing, the writer of the book mentioned that a woman one of the Washburns married was a descendant of another Mayflower passenger, William Brewster. What, what? How cool. So I settled in with the internet and ancestry.com last night, and within two hours I had her connection to William Brewster documented.
Two hours.
It took my grandma seven years.
So today, I have a feeling of accomplishment, but it's probably not quite like the jubilation she felt. *g* I wish she could have lived to do genealogy research on the internet.
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Somewhere in my husband's tree, there are Mayflower ancestors. If I remember correctly, there's one on my side, in my Pennock line, though I couldn't tell you for certain. LOTS of DARs though- my birth mom's mom was a member and quite proud of it. (We had family on both sides of that War)
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