This page provides information about the ancestors of James Lewellyn Wilder who came to Massachusetts on the Mayflower in 1620.
While "owning" Mayflower ancestors is historically interesting, they are far from unique. The Mayflower Society, which determines whether claims of descent from any of the twenty six male adults on the Mayflower are valid, estimates that as much as ten percent of the U.S. population may have at least one Mayflower descendant. They estimate that as many as seventy five million people in the US and Canada claim a Mayflower ancestor, but that only half that number are realistically possible. Only twenty five thousand people have made verifiable claims to this society. Having six adult ancestors among the Mayflower passengers may be more unusual, or not. Either way, James Wilder's family had deep and extensive roots in Plymouth County, Massachusetts for well over one hundred and fifty years, from 1620, until Asaph Thompson left Massachusetts for Maine in 1802.
James Wilder's ancestors who came to America on the ship Mayflower and who landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts were:
Peter Browne / The Browne name ended in our family with the death of Peter's daughter, Mary Ford Browne Tinkham, in 1689.
James Chilton and his wife, known only as "Mrs. Chilton" / The Chilton name ended in our family with the death of James's daughter Isabel Chlton Chandler around 1665.
Francis Cooke / The Cooke name ended in our line with the death of Francis's daughter, Mary Cooke Tomson , the great grandmother of Asaph Thompson, in 1715.
George Soule / The Soule name ended in our line with the death of George's great granddaughter, Martha Soule Tomson, the grandmother of Asaph Thompson in 1772.
Thomas Rogers / The Rogers family name ended in our line with the death of Abigail Rogers Richmond, the great great grandmother of Asaph Thompson in 1727.
The last direct ancestor of ours was descended from a Mayflower passenger and born in Plymouth Colony was Asaph Thompson, born in 1771 (or 1775) in Halifax, Plymouth County, Massachusetts.
Mayflower names were part of our family for 150 years after the landing at Plymouth in 1620. The last Mayflower name to disappear from our family was Soule.
These pilgrim men (and our ancestor Mrs. Chilton) were soon followed by members of their family on subsequent ships to Plymouth Colony. Related ancestors who followed on the sailing ships that arrived in the ten years or so after 1620 from Leyden, Holland, and are also properly considered "pilgrims" in the context that we learned in school. From about 1630 , the English immigrants who came to Massachusetts were considered part of "The Great Migration", and are known more commonly as Puritans. This larger group settled first in the area around what became Boston.
The Pilgrims were the vanguard group of the Puritans, which in itself was a name tagged to them by their enemies in England. The Pilgrims were separatists, who believed the Church of England was too corrupt to be redeemed and sought separation through distance, first in Holland and then in Massachusetts. The Puritans, although sharing a common belief with the Pilgrims, were considered "non separatists". We are directly descended from many of both Pilgrims and Puritans through the Wilder family line.
While not Pilgrims, the first Wilder,--Thomas Wyellder, arrived in Massachusetts somewhere about 1640 and was one of the earliest settlers in the Lancaster, MA area. He was followed by the generations of Nathaniel, his son, Oliver, Moses, Abel, James Marvel, Francis L. and James Llewellyn Wilder. The last Wilders in this line were Marian and Agnes Wilder, the line finally dying out with mom in 1990. 350 years of Wilders.
Happy Thanksgiving.