Most family hereditary societies are very small organizations. The Alden Kindred of America was established in 1901, first to protect the Alden homestead in Duxbury, Massachusetts, but second to gather together descendants of the famous Pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden. It currently has fewer than 1,400 members. Modeled after the new Mayflower Society established a few years earlier, the Alden Kindred required that members file lineage papers and proof for their claims, and it had dreams of eventually publishing a full Alden genealogy. However, unlike the Wing Family Association – which has been publishing its magazine The Owl for a century and in time produced a book – the Alden Kindred has not published any significant genealogy.
Yes, we have an excuse: The Aldens are part of the larger Mayflower family, and since 1960 the General Society of Mayflower Descendants has been working on its Mayflower Families Through Five Generations project. In addition, this author was both the Genealogist of the Alden Kindred for thirty-plus years and editor of the Alden family for the Five Generations Project, so technically the Kindred had one foot in both worlds. Still, the only family that has yet to have a complete treatment published in the Mayflower Families series is the Aldens – although the good news is that Volume 4 (the fifth generation descendants of Ruth Alden Bass) is in final stages of production under new editor John Bradley Arthaud, M.D., F.A.S.G.
With the first five generations of the family in the Mayflower Society’s hands, the Alden Kindred concentrated on the later generations of the family and established a basic but undocumented database of known descendants, which was posted on our website (www.alden.org). However, lack of human time and technical knowledge meant that the last update to the website database was in 2008. Again, in further good news, the Alden Kindred database has just been uploaded to Ancestry.com, where we can keep it up to date as we continue to improve the quality of the information in it.
As Genealogist of the Alden Kindred for all of these years, I had the responsibility of processing about 3,000 applications for membership, nearly 2/3 of which led to membership in the organization, as well as for communicating with researchers looking for their lines – all Alden-related questions were, by default, diverted to me. Unfortunately, despite best intentions, I never had the time to process this fragmentary information and make it accessible to other researchers.
The Aldens’ conundrum is common to all family associations. The gargantuan job of tracing hundreds of thousands (or more) of the descendants of a seventeenth-century family is a daunting task for our small budgets and limited people. It should go without saying how very grateful the Aldens are for the impressive work done by the Mayflower Society. I just believe that we should not rest on their laurels alone. My hat is enthusiastically off to all of you who have been collecting, researching, and publishing your family genealogy all these years. Is there, perhaps, a way that our small organizations might be able to pool our resources and make even more progress?
So, what is the chromosome and numerical segment that those who descend from Priscilla and John share??
Not everyone will share the same segments. You may be thinking of Y-DNA inheritance. All male direct descendants of John will have the same (or very similar) Y-DNA. Autosomal DNA is admixed in every generation.
I’ve done DNA testing with all of the major companies. Ancestry has been the most recent. I’ve been surprised by the matches I’ve gotten to others who are Alden descendants. My test was Autosomal of course, but it does seem that there must be a scientific way to understand why so many of us do match. It would be wonderful if this could be used to help us get over the lack of documentation for some of our ancestors?
Sandy, as far as the autosomal matches go on ancestry, remember that they are making these “matches” using the trees that have been uploaded to ancestry. In my case my autosomal id is something like 88% Great Brittain and my tree contains surnames such as Smith, Jones, and Williams. It is quite amazing when I’m matched to someone else with 5% Great Britain who has a Jones in the family! So it is fine for telling us ethnic roots, but I do not take autosomal “matches” to a specific family as science.
Ancestry can’t tell you if you’re linked to a specific individual, but FTDNA and Gedmatch can, with the same raw results you can download from Ancestry. You have to do chromosome mapping and triangulation to find others who inherited the exact same chunk of DNA you did from a specific common ancestor. 23andMe, FTDNA and Gedmatch give us the tools to do this; Ancestry does not. Ethnic results from any source are much less reliable because there’s still such a small percentage of the world population that’s been tested. All they can do is match you against the database they have.
Doris, good to know. Thanks.
The autosomal tests at the three companies are virtually identical. However, only 23andMe and Family Tree DNA provide tools that allow you to do chromosome mapping and triangulation that can prove the DNA you share with others came from a particular person or ancestral line. Ancestry testees must upload their raw results to Gedmatch.com to do that. The value in doing so (and anyone from any of the three companies can upload to Gedmatch and thereby simplify the process for all) is that you can be sure all who triangulate in a given group descend from Alden, or whomever.
Doris, thank you. I have only done the test with ancestry and have not kept up on the science. Another thing to put on my list.
I have been through all, many thousands, of the trees of my dna matches at ancestrydna. I have Alden and Priscilla in my tree, and so have 69 of my dna matches. What does that mean? Probably nothing.
Caith, excellent question. Although the Mayflower Society started a Y-DNA study more than a decade ago, it never progressed beyond the beginning stages, and the Alden Kindred has not had the resources to take up a DNA project, though it is on our wish list.
Are there 3+ people out there, who have valid documentation of their descent from the Aldens, and who have compared atDNA (autosomal) numerical segments at Gedmatch with their potential Alden cousins? What chromo, and what numerical segment/s did they overlap on?
This would probably not be a MRCA (most recent common ancestor) in their tree with a long segment, but it would be a smaller segment of 10cMs or less having been through recombination more times. And, yes, there is a randomness to DNA.
I, personally, do not have adequate documentation.
Caith, The Alden Kindred of America is in the process of putting together a task force to study the DNA situation. I don’t know, though, when there will be anything to report.
The Tier 1 Tool at GEDmatch is an example of a listing of all of your chromos (except chromo 23, the X), and the people who have uploaded to Gedmatch who match (overlap) you on each chromo at numerical points. With a quick colorful visual, you can see those who overlap you at different points. Once you have isolated an overlapping segment to work on, you must stop here and confirm that each person also matches Each other person, by doing a one-to-one comparison. The emails of your matches are in the list, so you would contact them to see what common ancestors they have in their trees which all of you share. This segment matching is a way to prove and confirm your lines. More than 3 people are needed to prove a line with segment matching.
This method requires less sifting and sorting – and is also user friendly.
So, actually Alden descendants with good documentation can get started………
Caith, thanks. There are very likely some Aldens who have already done this on their own, but I’m not aware of who. I will keep an eye out.
What are your thoughts on the books published by the Huntington Family Association?
Catherine, I have not seen any of the books, myself, but your website looks like you all have been busy and productive. Good work.
Hi,
Interesting update. I’m descended from William Pabodie and Elizabeth Alden, my 8G grandparents. Can I contribute my bit to your efforts? I’ve thought about signing up for the Aldens.
I am a member of Alden Kindred through Ruth Alden and John Bass, thanks to the help that Alicia gave me a number of years ago. I lived in the Detroit area for 16 yrs. Imagine our surprise when one of our friends, years later, said she had a connection to John Alden too, through William Pabodie and Elizabeth Alden. We are cousins after having been good friends for years! I look forward to the new book, that Alicia alluded to in her post! Thanks so much, Alicia for everything you have done for the Alden Kindred and Mayflower Society. I had the pleasure of meeting you one time at a conference!
Hi Jan, Thank you, very appreciated. Hope you can come east again and see all the new stuff at the house.
Alicia, I am East, living on Cape Cod!!
Okay, I’ve been out of the loop. See you in August!
Hi Jan,
Reading your comments with Alicia Williams and noted you are now located nearby. We are always looking for Alden’s to get more involved in our programs, governance, and other activities. Let me know your interests !
Pauline Kezer, President. I can be reached at paulinekezer@comcast.net.
We r part time between Florida and Ma. Leaving this week for FL. Will have to think about how I can be involved when we get back. Thanks! Jan
Welcome Carol. Love to have you join the Aldens. E-mail to akagenealogists@yahoo.com and they will take good care of you.
Oops, sorry, that address should be akagenealogists@gmail.com
Oddly enough after months of work I am mailing my paperwork to Alden Kindred tomorrow…also through Elizabeth Alden and William Pabodie and then to the Grinnell/Lewis clan. Let’s hope that I dotted all my i’s and crossed all my t’s and will be part of the 2/3 accepted! Yea
Donarita Vocca
Donarita, great. Our new Genealogist, Lilly Cleveland, will be the one checking your papers since I’m retired now, but I’m sure everything will go well.
Terrific! Hope to meet you.
Pauline Kezer, President AKA
Hi Carol, I hope you will consider joining the Alden Kindred. You can start the process by becoming a Museum Member for $30 ( or $55 for a family with children under 21). Then you can work with our genealogy team to determine what additional documentation is needed to be a lineage member. There is a small fee for us to conduct the research. In the meantime, you can be a member in good standing, receive our newsletters, discounts to special programs, discount on Alden store items, etc. We are actively looking to ” know” more ” cousins”. We have an annual meeting every year the first Saturday in August. I am always amazed that some Aldens come from far away places to attend. A good place to start is to write a note to AKAgenealogist@gmail.com. Pauline Kezer, President , Alden Kindred of America.
…through 3396 Elisha Bradford and his wife Eunice Bennett’s son Simeon (1794-1862) on the incomplete Alden database.
Fingers crossed that a good answer to your concluding question is found!
Karen, thanks.
Why, yes, of course there is. It could have been organized years ago. Now, with the ubiquity of the Web, it is just going to be easier to get the ball rolling and show some immediate positive results.
The One Word Summary is Collaboration.
The model is projects like Maine Families in the 1790 censuses, or the Western Massachusetts version, and even the Society’s Massachusetts Vital Records project. Each has a Host. With Financial Support. Supervised by a Managing Editor. With Contributions by “Amateur” Contributors [of Increasing Skills Sophistication]. Producing Output as Text with Footnotes to the Most Contemporary Source.
The Host provides basic physical support, and thus continuity to see the project completed and publicly available. There can be supporting Hosts but there needs to be a Managing Host. Note that Host(s) is/are not passive entities. This is where Leadership occurs.
Financial Support is part of that physical support. Bytes cost $. CD Roms cost $. Trade Paperbacks cost $. And as a former Met Museum Board director once said, “You’ve got to raise the scratch.” So, tip of the hat to Brent and the Society’s Council for starting on the current Capital Campaign, let alone for getting where they are. And some of that $ will have to go to leadership marketing of the Project and Product as both Public and Proprietary.
The Managing Editor(s) provide continuity of Quality Oversight. Wikipedia as an information source is a TOTAL FAILURE. That the people who own the Encyclopedia Britannica don’t get this and haven’t figured out how to make that failure work for them is just a sadness. Even just transcribing the entire 1911 EB (with pics, yes) would provide the world with a basic accessible knowledge pool, though I’d prefer they use the 1964 New York World Fair edition. As the crunch for Genealogical Quality is in the details, Managing Editor(s) are the Project’s Quality Control Officers.
(Fundraising to create Post-Doctorate positions for Associate Editors of 3 years each in length but overlapping will be necessary, but you will be swamped with qualilty applicants, cf the Newbery Library in Chicago and of course the W&M Colonial Institute in Williamsburg.)
But NOTHING gets produced unless there is a growing pool of Contributors who are encouraged to start as tyros so they can end up as experts. And part of that ongoing (self)-education is to act not only as original researcher and original writer, but as Secondary Fact Checker on material submitted by others. That active function will embed a version of academia’s “peer-review” tactics into the project. Hey, if its good enough for The New Yorker to have fact-checkers, its good enough for The NEHGS.
The output needs to be available in a variety of “platforms”. The Absolutely Free Platform will have to be in a Summary Format. That can be shared with Ancestry. The Proprietary Platform Online is the Full Megilla with commentary and detailed footnotes. That’s NOT shared with Ancestry. The fully copyrighted text edition can be a mid-form version. Hard copy is NOT going away. But for National Marketing purposes for Impact and Revenue, the Free Platform is, again, absolutely necessary. It is your “loss leader”.
All these elements together will produce a Quality Product and Model for other REGIONAL genealogical societies.
For this REGION (Nueva Anglia), I recommend that this Society invite ALL other NE genealogical societies and local and state historical societies to an organizing conference for a Consortium. There needs to be a leadership group, and then a larger affiliated group. These entities are the avenues by which volunteer contributors are encouraged, recruited, trained, recognized, etc. Participation in this Regional Project will provide many of the smaller organizations with an extra “reason-to-be”. (An interesting side effect will be the “finding” of new documents, some of which are hiding right now in plain sight.)
I would recommend calling it The New England Family Genealogy Project: Section 1 covers the years 1600 to 1775. Section 2 covers the years 1775 to 1850. Section 3 covers 1850 to 1920. (Section 4 would cover 1920 to 2000 but will only formally start up about 2050, though correctly sourced submissions along with “oral histories” can/will be archived at any time.)
I ran a stripped down version of this past Ralph and Brent back in 2001, and by Gary in 2006. There were other fish to fry then. Now, all the pre-construction materials and people and, I trust, leadership are in place on the building lot. Time to lay the foundation and put on the hard hats and build.
What? You thought I didn’t have a plan?
Bob, Of course I knew you’d have a plan! But any publication project tied to funneling everything through a single editor can produce only so much product. Granted it will be good product, but limited quantity. The wiki is the opposite, where there is plenty of quantity and no quality. The ideal would seem to be some collaborative dedicated to publishing good genealogy where members paid to belong then posted their articles for other members and public to peer review — I know, full of all kinds of administrative explosives!
From “Objections Raised and Replied Thereunto” {[London, 1627?]}* —
The Project’s Objective is Best Sourced Gen-Bio Sketches made available to the General Public at a Sustained Rate.
Of course, Subject to Revision as new information is developed by Contributors Over Time. (That’s why making the Primary Platform the Online Proprietary Database is crucial–things like the last paragraph of the “Edward Bulkeley” EF sketch can be revised without waiting 20 years for a hard copy reprint edition.)
ITEM 1:
“through a single editor”–
I did deliberately state Managing Editor(s). I meant to type there “WITH Assistant Editors, preferably 3”.
The Managing Editors would report to the Council of the Consortium. They would be ME for Editorial and ME for Production/Publication. The Assistant Editors would have responsibility for supervision of the Associate Editors and the Contributors; 1 editor would cover CT-RI, 1 editor would cover Plymouth-Mass Bay, and 1 editor would cover Maine-NH-Essex County.
Each Assistant Editor would have supervision of 2 Associate Editors–the pre-post-doc paid “interns” I previously mentioned, serving staggered 2 or 3 year terms. All the AEs would work directly with the Contributors and their Supporting Organizations.
The Specific Production Output Rate for this structure would be, initially, whatever Your Current Rate is Times 3. My expectations is that it would speed up considerably over a short period of time. But, “we will sell no wine before its time.”
The “Fill-In-The-Blanks” format already exists with your EF format. I will demonstrate this with a circa 1689 marriage in Lynn using only Society online resources. (But not today!)
ITEM 2:
“where members paid to belong”–
Not necessary for the Contributors as they would ALREADY be members of the Supporting Organizations. They would be issued sign-in/password codes for their GB sketch, with commenting privileges to all others, subject to AE moderation.
To participate, they join their Supporting Org. This step supports the activities of particular local or area organizations. I would exclude as Supporting Organizations state-funded historical societies such as the CT State Library and Archives. So if the Maine HS was a supporting participant, but the Maine Genealogical Society was not, contributors would have to join the MeHS. But I did mention having a tier of SOs, so there would be ways to accommodate individuals, such as a “grandfathering in”.
But, YES!, the Public Summary Online Platform would, of course, be a SUBSCRIPTION service. The model for this is The GM Project website which is, conceptually, underdeveloped and would be subsumed into The NEFG Project. (I mean, right now, what is it’s raison d’etre?)
ITEM 3:
“posted their articles for other members and public to peer review”–
Oh, yes, that is an ESSENTIAL part of a participant’s Contributor Experience. (See Item 2 1st paragraph.)
To grow themselves from tyros to experts or as much as they want to be. Why, there could even be monthly working groups of Contributors hosted by the SOs! Genbio Quilting Bees, if you like.
BUT, the ME structure above is essential to avoid the WIKIPEDIA Debacle. I mean, I can’t tell you how often a former Lt-Gov of NY has erased my footnoting to NYT articles on her background and career which contained accurate information, and does Wikipedia care? Of course not. So, all that’s there now is her PR spin.
ITEM 4 (new)–
Yep, “the Mark, the Yen, the Buck and the Pound make the World Go Round”.
After all, what’s a fundraising department for but to raise money, especially seed money from the various NE state cultural councils. Certainly, the Society has a relationship with the Mass. one. Plus, raising $ was the whole point for the creation of the Society’s Council structure and Brent has made that hum.
And once up & running a bit, there’s the NAMING RIGHTS. Think of the Gilder-Lehman Institute (I DO! especially in regards the Society’s big brother relationship with the AJHS**). Then there are those Hunt sisters that Gary knows (they can’t all be dead — that’s a long lived clan). And there are the NE families themselves (other Cabots may still only speak to God, but departed John was certainly a leader/supporter of the Society). And, hey! don’t we have a direct pipeline to the Johnsons of Fidelity? Maybe Abby and her siblings would like to do something for Mom and Dad.
Happy to address other concerns. I have more details in the pipeline.
My overall premise on this is: Think Big, Act Big, Do Now.
RMG
* Its a JOKE, people, cf Edward Winslow, “Hyprocisie Unmasked.”
** Myra and Bob Kraft, for instance.
Bob, Alas, the genealogy community is not like the academic, where it is part of a professor’s job to write and peer review, so we just don’t have the depth to draw on editors. I am thinking along the lines of having organizations join the collaborative and embrace the goal of quality publication, then appoint their own writers who would have the authority to post. Other writers in the collaborative and the public could review it. A LOT of things would need to be worked out, including copyrights, etc., with a lot of pain for the gain. Perhaps someone could start a small pilot program and see where it goes?
Why, of course a pilot project would be OK.
And ENEF, along with 1790 Families in West. Mass., are ALREADY such pilot projects. Helen U. as supervisor has volunteers from all over working on those names (the Joe Payne sketch was done by a woman from Virginia). So, just how does she do it, re recruiting & vetting volunteers, daily editorial schedule, draft reviews, plus financial support from the Society, etc?
Just adopt THAT structure to ENEF. You could start out seeking MASOG and ESOG members participation by working through their leadership structures–with of course the blessing of Brent & the Council/Board based on an outline using my recommendations about where the project should be in 3 to 8 years time.
Each group would concentrate on (1) a specific area: Middlesex County for MASOG, and Essex for ESOG, on (2) a specific grouping of people derived from Torrey, and on (3) a specific time period, i.e. the 1640s before going on to the 1650s, etc.
Online publication vetting for the project would go from Volunteer Submitter to MASOG/ESOG Coordinator to You. The format is your format for ENEF, which creates a deeper dive into each family’s core members plus their connections than does Anderson’s (of necessity) constricted approach in Great Migration. That deeper dive makes getting to the output more time consuming
YOU train the Organizational Coordinators in the specifics of using your format. (A very detailed guide book will result. I’d say doing a chronology for each person/family is an absolute 1st step. I’m finding it helpful in separating out the two George Palmers, for instance.)
They, in turn, train their volunteers. The volunteers can work individually or as a team; I’d push the team idea of at least 2. The Org Coordinators check up on them occasionally as in Lets go over what you’ve got at the next quarterly meeting.
At this stage there are no final deadlines. 1st draft to Coordinators should be within 6 months. They review and kick back to Submitters. Only 2nd drafts go to you. You kick it back with editorial responses such as “You missed this source” etc. And so, repeat until the wine is done — AT LEAST as to Best Original Sources Available Standards.
Other groups will, as output picks up, want in. Even The WINGS Over America group might want to move their stuff from The Owl to this venue; writing up in your format might help them understand what they have and do not have. So, yeah, that would be a case in which a group does one (1) Surname up through 1700. But, so what? It’ll be done to Quality Standards when its DONE.
After three (3) years, it will be time to have the Society take the lead and call for a broader organizing conference, having already had its Fund Raising dept. test the waters for Support $ and Naming Rights. Again, let me say that the Mass. Cultural Council should have 1st do you want to support? right of refusal, before looking for any well-off Torrey or Savage descendants.
At Year 5, it becomes a stand alone project with its own web site, into which the GM site is subsumed as a page.
This can all be up & running in 6 months, with first submissions scheduled for publication as of January 2016 on the EFNE site.
After all, all of what I’ve outlined is just an elaborated extension of how James Savage got the GDNE done in the first place
Why am I so insistent on this?
BECAUSE Bob Anderson is not getting any younger (nor are you or I),
BECAUSE a decision has been made to publish a Great Migration Directory of “all the ones I haven’t gotten to yet and that I might not get to” (which is a “that should tell you something” decision),
BECAUSE the Society leadership has decided to not just be a semi-passive repository but to push its own active database development, and
BECAUSE James Savages’ GDNE, to quote Bob Anderson himself from the GMN 23:26, “is still, after a century and a half, the best source available”, and
BECAUSE such a situation is NOT FREAKING ACCEPTABLE anymore.
And, so, if not you and the Society, then who?
I’m a little surprised, actually, that none of the area genealogical societies haven’t yet just gone and started this themselves. Happy to sell all of the above to them.
Back to Cayuga County New York deeds.
Brilliant plan, Bob. I’m all for it, with one exception. Not me (my new favorite words). It will take a whippersnapper much younger than you, me and Bob to launch that project. They are out there and it will be interesting to see how things develop.
By the way, you succeeded in nagging me into getting a domain name — not the one for henry crane that you suggested and I won’t share until it is actually connected to something, but it is one small step toward preserving my own family genealogy, if nothing else.
I descend from Alexander and Lucy (Leonard) Alden’s son Alexander (b. JAN 1794, Bridgewater, MA; d. 15 MAR 1880, Canton, ME), who is not included in the Genealogical Database. I would be happy to share what I know.
Hello, I am trying to prove my lineage from John Alden. I have the first 5 gens., Then Zilpha 1/4/1780 married Benjamin Hayward; The daughter Jerusha married Otis Wales; Their daughter Abigail Wales married Anson Dolliff, then down to myself. It’s these three gens. that I am having trouble with. Did you happen to come across any of these names in your research? I would truly appreciate any info or help. Thank you, Dorothy
David, you can contact the Aldens directly at akagenealogists@yahoo.com. Thanks.
Sorry, that address should be akagenealogists@gmail.com
David,
I descend from Lucy and Alexander’s daughter Sarah. Do you mostly have information for your direct line or do you also have collateral information? I know she married Isaac Frost, I just don’t have a document proving she is, in fact, Lucy and Alexander’s daughter. A friend with more resources than I have has looked for land records, town records and others with no luck. Databases and books all indicate this be correct information, but it would be nice to have something more solid. Thanks.
Karen
Excellent article!! The Colby Family Association, http://www.colby-family-association.org, traces the descendants of Anthony & Susannah Colby. At this point there are more than 28,000 verified and many more we are working on. Their home is still there in Amesbury, Mass and the 2014 reunion was held there. I would love to see COLBY in the Early Families Project!!
Hi Alice, The Colby boys will be in the Early Family project, but it will still be a little while. John, Anthony’s oldest boy, married in 1655, and we’re still in 1641! I took a look at the Colby website and you seem to be doing good work, keep it up.
I wish the Aldens hard work and great success. Hannah Holmes, daughter of Jabez and Lydia Harris, is one of my brick walls. Who did she marry???
My ancestor was “Henry the non-Mayflower Alden.” Having no male Aldens to test I located a lady on the internet whose father has a clear paper trail to old Henry. I know nothing about YDNA; however, his results are posted on the Mayflower Project pages – kit 177101. No match that I can see. He does match a whole bunch of Rose families. Not sure of the connection yet. He has only tested to 37 markers.
Kay, that is most interesting. First result from Henry that I’ve heard of.
Hi Ann, that is still one of the research projects we need explore!
Alicia, thank you for your excellent article. I just sent my prelim application into the MN. Mayflower Historian. I have about 3/4 of records gathered. However, no one has proven my lineage yet. I am related to the Aldens through their daughter Rebecca, who married Thomas Delano. My line does merge with the Harlow line when Eleazer Harlow married Hannah Delano. My line moved to Vermont and migrated to WI. in 1848. I hope I will be able to prove it and maybe add information to our huge Alden Family. I am going to write to the Alden genealogist, that you mentioned. My dream is to visit Plymouth as soon as I have proven my lineage. I hope I can share books and records I have found with the Alden group. Thanks again. You have given me encouragement to continue on.:)
Judy, I hope it all goes well with Mayflower and the Aldens look forward to seeing your new line, too!
I do believe you seriously underestimated the number of descendants for the average Great Migration family. Some years ago, I looked at my Wing family, where the first generation only had three sons who came to America. I know our records are quite complete until circa 1800 and did a bit of statistical calculations to come up with a rough estimate for the number of descendants and came up with a figure of roughly 10-20 Million descendants!
Even if this figure is grossly inflated, It still shows where it would be impossible for most Great Migration families to ever be able to document all of their descendants, say nothing about publishing this information.
Raymond, certainly it is an exponentially unwinnable situation. Once you identify the first million, the second million will be born! I use the figure one million for the Aldens, but that is as much of a guess as anyone. Have to figure in that when two Alden descendants marry each other, their children are not counted twice, the decreasing number of children born per family, etc.
Alice, you’re inspiring me! Judah Paddock SPOONER (1748-1807) is one of my approved DAR Supplemental Patriots. He is the grandson of Judah PADDOCK and Alice ALDEN, a granddaughter of John and Priscilla Alden, so I don’t have many generations to document for Alden Kindred.
By the way, last summer I went to Milford, Connecticut, for the PLATT reunion and the 375th anniversary of the founding of Milford.
Concerning the number of descendants, one of my projects is documenting all the descendants of Abraham VAN SCOY (1788-1849) and his wife Mary KNAPP (1795-1882) who moved from New York to Ohio. Right now i have 232 documented descendants of them through their great(2)-grandchildren.
For a similar study of the descendants of Jesse STUMP (1784-1869) and Susan (FEASEL?) (1788-1859) of the South Branch Valley of (West) Virginia, I’ve documented 237 descendants through their great(2)-grandchildren.
Frances, wow, good work. I have to get back to my own Williams family, who came in 1885. I think the last count was 150, but they’ve been multiplying all the while.
I’m new to this blog–and New England genealogy, for that matter. But I’ve claim to Alden and Howland lines and the like. In the last year I’ve begun diving into historical sites, books, and charts. Loving it. But it has seemed a fractured and under-resourced community. As such, I applaud both your blog post ACW (much less your decades of service) and RMG, your plan of attack–so much so that I’m led to ask, PLEASE KEEP ME IN THE LOOP!
Devin, thanks cousin (I’m a Howland, too). This will, I am sure, be a topic for more discussions in the future.
I am thankful that she was helpful to me by finding the missing link.
Barbara, you are welcome. Thanks for supporting the Kindred.
Kudos to ACW for causing commotion, and to RMG for presenting a much needed plan. There has to be a “cut in stone” version of data, at which researchers throw “rocks”. Rocks with merit get accepted, and those without merit don’t clutter the landscape. Oh no, we don’t throw it away, it just doesn’t get “cut in stone”. All data is available to the membership (extent to be decided), and anyone can see c.i.s. data, but only members can get copies and/or participate in data assimilation; i.e. you can display a name, view the record, go to the attached “contribution” page, select “add, change, delete”, fill in the “subject” blank (b. date, d. date, bur. place” etc., and freeform your reason for your contribution. This is of course after all of the worker bees have made initial entries from “28,000 verified” (thank you Colby’s) and any other organizations that wish to be initial contributors. Where the NEHGS Board has nothing else to do……… Now we see who lines up at the proverbial door !!! So much to do and so little time +
Alicia, Your Alden post is as interesting as your many other posts! Volume Four, the fifth generation of Ruth Alden Bass went to the printer yesterday. It will be available soon! Lea Sinclair Filson, Governor General, General Society Mayflower Descendants.
Lea, Yeah! Great news. Give my best to the whole team for a lot of hard work well done.
I,too, am descended from Ruth Alden Bass via Mary Bass who married William Copeland 1694 in Braintree. I am delighted to hear that the 5th book has gone to print.
My 2g grandmother, Mary Joyce Babbidge McCrea was descended from Mssrs. Alden, Standish, Warren, and Samson of the Mayflower. You were the person who told me she was already documented. The problem was making the connection from Mary Joyce to me.
Subsequently, I received a family tree of Mary Joyce ‘s descendants down to my generation in connection with an inheritance. Would that tree be of interest to the Alden or Mayflower associations?
I hope to apply for my Alden membership very soon when I receive 3 death certificates from the New Jersey Dept of Vital Statistics. It has been 13 weeks and counting.