Documenting Mayflower and Jamestown Descent

How each society defines a qualifying ancestor and what an application has to document



The Mayflower landed 102 passengers at Plymouth in 1620, and about half were dead by the following spring. Virginia Company settlers had chosen Jamestown Island 13 years earlier, on 14 May 1607. Two hereditary societies verify descent from those landings, and the rules differ.


The General Society of Mayflower Descendants formed at Plymouth on 12 January 1897, and the Jamestowne Society was organized on Jamestown Island on 14 May 1936. Note that an ancestor in the right place and time does not by itself qualify you. Each works from its own closed list of accepted ancestors.


The Mayflower Society


Who Counts as a Qualifying Mayflower Ancestor


The Mayflower Society requires direct lineal descent from a passenger who stayed to build Plymouth Colony. The crew sailed home in the spring of 1621 and does not count, and neither does a later arrival on the Fortune in 1621 or the Anne in 1623. By the Society's own count, 26 families of passengers left descendants, and its list of passengers with known descendants runs to 51 of the 102 aboard.


The Silver Books


The Mayflower Society leans on a compiled genealogy that has already done the colonial generations: the Silver Books, proposed in September 1959 as a tracing of 5 generations of descent from every passenger and first published in 1975. There are now 22 volumes in 42 books, most carrying a family through the fifth generation and naming the sixth. Coverage is uneven, though: the Francis Eaton volume is out of print and Moses Fletcher has no volume at all. Sometimes a sketch is corrected later as new evidence turns up.


What a Mayflower Application Has to Prove


The Mayflower Society wants complete documentation for you, your parents and the grandparents in the line, and it prefers primary sources: birth, marriage and death certificates, church baptism and marriage registers, colonial town vital records, and cemetery records that carry biographical detail. An index entry will not stand in for the certificate itself, and once a state was recording an event, you generally have to produce that record or a "no record found" letter from the office that would hold it. Where no vital record exists, the Society will accept secondary evidence instead, such as census records, obituaries, wills, and other published, well-documented sources. Those recent certificates may also be restricted by privacy laws, which vary by state, and cost money to order. The Society does not accept an online family tree as evidence, and it turns away DAR and SAR papers as well.


Where to Start With a Mayflower Line


Start with a person rather than a form: the historian of the Member Society nearest you. The Mayflower Society Research Center at 4 Winslow Street in Plymouth releases nothing about anyone born within the last 100 years.


The Jamestowne Society


Who Counts as a Qualifying Jamestowne Ancestor


The Jamestowne Society accepts 6 categories of ancestor.


  • Stockholder in the London or Virginia Company, or a member of an investing guild
  • Owner or resident of land on Jamestown Island before 1700
  • Resident of Virginia at the 1624/25 Muster or earlier
  • Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Attorney General, Clerk of the General Court, member of the Council or House of Burgesses before 1700
  • Church of England minister in Virginia before 1700
  • Official Indian interpreter in Virginia before 1700


Owning land in a neighboring county does not by itself qualify anyone, which stops many Virginia lines. The Society publishes its list of qualifying ancestors, and if your ancestor is not on it you must prove the qualifying service as well as your descent.


Adventurers of Purse and Person


Jamestowne applicants use John Frederick Dorman's Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, which traces early Virginia families through 6 generations. The Society requires the 4th edition, published in 3 volumes between 2005 and 2007, and will not accept a line where either book says probably or maybe.


What a Jamestowne Application Has to Prove


There must be documentation connecting each and every generation, in the Jamestowne Society's own words, and it wants copies of primary source records: wills, deeds, court records, census returns, death certificates, and Bible or newspaper entries made close to the event itself. Jamestowne excludes Find a Grave, DNA results, and an online family tree offered as proof; genealogies attached to Ancestry.com family trees are treated as research hints rather than evidence. Most printed genealogies are rejected too, including several the Society has named specifically, such as Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers 1607-1635, Jamestowne People to 1800, and Peter Wilson Coldham's Complete Book of Emigrants series, unless a source is thoroughly documented in its own right. Lineage papers approved by other societies are not accepted either. Membership is by invitation, so you need a member to sponsor you.


When a Cousin Has Already Proved a Jamestowne Line


Jamestowne sells copies of its own approved lineage papers, with the most recent 3 generations removed. The Society asks applicants to clear any approved paper not listed on its website with the Executive Director first. Sometimes a generation a cousin was excused from documenting has to be proved again by you.


Where to Start With a Jamestowne Line


Start with a person rather than a form: a member of the company nearest you or the Executive Director in Williamsburg. Virginia lines are harder, since many colonial county records burned, and what survives is on microfilm at the Library of Virginia in Richmond.


We can help you obtain the documents needed to prove a Mayflower or Jamestowne line, and offer a free consultation to get started.



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