Joining the Mayflower Society

After I discovered our family links to the Mayflower on the Ayer side I decided that I would like to join the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Finding the line back to the Mayflower was MUCH easier than proving that line to join the Society.  I contacted the New Mexico state chapter historian and he helped me to begin the process. The Society has very detailed rules for what is considered proof.  So I started to collect documents, some of which are considered primary sources, and some secondary sources.  I was required to provide "The last three generations...must have all birth, marriage and death records for the line carrier and his/her spouse(s) in each generation and, in all other generations, every event taking place after 1900 must be documented with the appropriate civil record whenever possible."
This part took time and money. I needed to get copies of my parents information and send requests  to the State of Maine for all the missing documents.  In addition we had to go further back into the 4th generation (Dana Ayer and Helen McIntire because they had passed away since 1900.)  The State of Maine took some time because as the woman at their office told me "We are significantly short staffed and this is our busy time of year.  Thank you for your patience."

While I waited for the documents to arrive I continued to collect as much information as I could.  The critical link turned out to be Benjamin McIntire III. His mother was Maria Prince who was the direct descendant to the Mayflower. Finding a source that would link mother and son was difficult. I located his death certificate and it listed Maria as his mother, but I needed more evidence. Census records for the time prior to 1850 did not list names of all residents so I had no proof that he was her son there.  My state historian suggested that I send to the National Archives for his pension record since he had served in the Army during the Civil War.
More Money!  This cost around $80 and took almost 8 weeks to arrive.  It contained legal size copies of his record and was 86 pages long!  Buried within it was a letter recognizing his birth to Maria Prince from the town registrar. We had our link!

We sent the application and documents to Plymouth in mid October.  In late January I received a letter welcoming me to the Society.  Having completed the research and joined,  my extended family could now use my membership information to apply.
It was a lot of work, but I feel it was an important piece of our family story and needed to be documented for future generations.  I am now working on the Sawyer line, which also has numerous connections to the Mayflower as I have noted previously in this blog. I just have to have patience, money and time!


https://www.themayflowersociety.org/