week 31 - "Mayflower descendants"

     Once again we are straying from the "excellent adventures" that were on the deck of cards given to us at retirement.  And this isn't an adventure, but we thought you would be interested to know of our discovery.
     The week before Easter was Spring Break for David's children in Omaha.  They took a road trip to Illinois for several days to visit family.  While they were here, David asked to see some of the research that Brian Weber (my cousin's son) had done on our family tree.  He composed famly trees for my dad's father (Fred Alfred Weber), my dad's mother (Bernice Mose), and my own mother (Doris Kronshagen).  The names and dates go back to the 1500's.  I have looked at this research and read some of the pages, but to be honest, it doesn't keep my interest.  But David was not only reading it, but apparently processing it also.  My grandmother's name was Bernice Mose; and on page 23 of her family tree, David noticed that a husband and wife were born in England in the late 1500's and died in Plymouth, Massechusetts in the early 1600's. 

     He then went to a couple of internet sites to determine when the Mayflower sailed (1620).  He found a passenger list of those who sailed  and these two ancestors, as well as their two sons, were on the list.  William Brewster, his wife Mary (Wentworth) Brewster, and their two sons, Love and Wrestling, made the voyage intact.  There were 100 passengers that left England aboard the Mayflower.  Fifty died along the way and one boy was actually born during the voyage. 
     There were two other voyages made that decade:  one in 1629 which carried Higginson's party to Salem; and one in 1630 which carried Winthrop's party to Charlestown.  But my ancestors were on the 1620 Mayflower which brought the Pilgrim fathers to New Plymouth.  Pretty cool, huh?
     I looked over the passenger list and saw a few names that I recognized from high school history class:  John Alden and Miles Standish.  I was never one to remember much about history class, but those two names I remembered.  I thought that this accidental discovery was pretty impressive.  I wish my brother Fritz was alive to know this.  He always had a deep interest in history as well as family.  But....who knows....maybe he does know this.