After church and then lunch on a recent Sunday in Augusta, Memere and Pepere were treated to a serenade of “Chipmunk Christmas” by Alvin, Simon and Theodore — I mean, 9-year-old Andrew, 6-year-old Dylan and 4-year-old Emilee Anne.
Since then, those angelic faces have floated in my mind as I’ve been reading about 7-year-old Bartholomew, 5-year-old Remember and 4-year-old Mary, the young children who accompanied their parents Isaac and Mary (Norris) Allerton aboard the Mayflower for its two-month voyage to what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Isaac and Mary were two of few ancestors among the ship’s 101 passengers. Were their children brown-haired like my Maine grandchildren, or perhaps blonde like the ones in Minnesota. Did little Mary have a doll to bring with her?
Mary Allerton is so special, and not just because she’s my ancestor and was so young when she stepped into an adventure she did not choose. Later the wife of Robert Cushman, Mary lived to be the last surviving Mayflower passenger, dying in Connecticut.
Where did I put my Mayflower anyway? Not the real thing, of course. But on my first trip to the living history museum Plimoth Plantation decades ago, I purchased a model of the ship, made of wood and canvas, durable enough that I loaned it out to school classes and sometimes even sent it to school with other people’s children.
At least once a year I find myself viewing the website of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants at themayflowersociety.org.
The site is not only a guide for those interested in joining Mayflower but a good introductory website for those wanting to learn more about the Pilgrims or acquire educational materials to use with youngsters.
In addition to its quarterly journal, the Mayflower Society has published volumes detailing the first generations of many of the Pilgrims. Volume 24 of the silver series, as it is known because of the color of its bindings, is dedicated to the first four generations of descendants of William Brewster. I can’t say that everyone with Brewster in their ancestry is a descendant of his, but I’ll say that finding the surname in a family tree usually inspires me to want to follow the line back far enough to see if it is a Mayflower line.
Another source of information for a Pilgrim genealogy, or any other surname for that matter, may be a family society or association. Some associations include reunions among their activities for sharing information on family history. Societies that preserve the memory and history of individual Mayflower passengers are listed on the Mayflower site.
Over the years I’ve bought many books about the Pilgrims to share with my sons and now my grandchildren.
Does information about the Mayflower and its passengers, from coloring book images of turkeys and Pilgrims and Indians to many historical accounts, tend to romanticize Thanksgiving and overlook the wars that came after European settlements of these lands took hold?
That’s certainly true. Yet Thanksgiving remains a special day for me in terms of my family and our heritage, the sacrifices of those who came to a “new” country and became part of its fabric and also gratitude to the Native Americans who were so generous to the Pilgrims. Half the Mayflower passengers died that first year, but half survived with the help of what Canada calls First Nation people.
In recent years, Maine youngsters have been learning more about Native Americans in Maine thanks to the Maine History and Culture Law, introduced to the Legislature in 2002 by Penobscot tribal Rep. Donna Loring, who has written about her experiences in the Legislature.
One of her ancestors, Frank Loring of Indian Island, in the late 1800s was not only a guide but a showman who sometimes included family members in programs of skits that were well-attended by white people who came to the shows with definite expectations. Though he was not a chief in the Penobscot Nation, he performed as “Chief Big Thunder,” because giving these shows even in big cities like Boston was one of the few acceptable avenues of employment for Native Americans.
Loring is featured in the book “Indians in Eden,” written by professors Harald Prins and Bunny McBride. Loring was one of many Penobscots who used to spend the summer in a portion of Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island in order to offer guiding services or sell handmade baskets to the Rusticators.
At least four of my six grandchildren in Maine and Minnesota are 14th generation descendants of three or four Mayflower passengers.
But, all four in Maine are seventh-generation descendants of Frank Loring through their great-grandmother, Elaine Francis Phillips, who grew up on French Island in Old Town.
We will remember the Pilgrims on Thursday. I’ll also remind them about Frank Loring and their Penobscot ancestry, from those who fought to protect this country as far back as the Revolutionary War to their present-day cousins who are at the forefront of protecting the Penobscot River. Friday, Nov. 27, is Native American Heritage Day, and November is Native American Heritage Month.
For information on researching family history in Maine, see Genealogy Resources under Family Ties at bangordailynews.com/browse/family-ties. Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402, or email familyti@bangordailynews.com.