Back to Family Story outcomes, S22
by Lily Fleming
My name is Lily Fleming and I was born in Manhattan, New York. Before taking this Genealogy course, my prior knowledge of my family history was that I was 50% Irish and 50% Welsh. However, after taking the DNA test, I discovered that I am 60% Irish, 19% Wales, 10% Germanic Europe, 6% England & Northwestern Europe, 3% Sweden and Denmark, and 2% Scotland. To me, this information was slightly shocking. I am much more Irish than I was told I was, and significantly less Welsh than I believed. The other four regions I had no clue about, but once I started expanding my family tree, some of these regions began to pop up as to where some of my ancestors were born and raised.
When I was focusing on my England and Northwestern Europe relatives, I stumbled upon a very interesting person. A person who was a part of a great event in history that started the movement of my ancestors from England to Massachusetts. This was the Mayflower.
The Mayflower set sail from England in 1620 to the New World. My ancestor, Thomas Rogers (1571-1621), was one of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower! This news to me was extremely exciting to find. To be related to someone who was on the ship was really interesting to discover.
I am related to Thomas Rogers through my maternal side of the family. Thomas is my 12th great-grandfather. On the Mayflower with him was his oldest son, Joseph. Unfortunately, soon after the Mayflower was docked, Thomas passed away due to sickness. However, Joseph survived and then married his wife and had a great number of children. Eventually Joseph’s brothers and sisters immigrated to the United States, specifically his brother, John Rogers, who is my 11th great-grandfather.
Thomas was claimed to be a signer of “The Mayflower Compact.” To the right is a famous image that I discovered from The Thomas Rogers Society. In this image you can see a bunch of the men signing and reading over the compact in hopes to create a governed civilization in the Plymouth colony.
Discovering I am related to a Mayflower passenger was extremely surprising and exciting, but more importantly, it helped me confirm the England and Northwestern Europe part of my DNA results that I was a bit confused about in the beginning of this process. It was very eye opening to me to discover that I have an ancestor who was a part of a great historical event.
Works Cited
Reeves, Ann T. [Revised by] (Originally compiled by Alice W. A. Westgate), Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, Mass. December 1620: Family of Thomas Rogers(Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2000). Hereinafter cited as Rogers-Silver.
Cardinal, John. “Main Page.” 7 July 2021, https://www.thomasrogerssociety.com/
“Every Family Has a Story.” Ancestry® | Family Tree, Genealogy & Family History Records, 1997, https://www.ancestry.com/