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Important
New Mayflower Family Archive
The
Complete Mayflower Descendant and Other Sources 1600s-1800s
(CD 203)
Reviewed by Marthe Arends
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Once again Mayflower descendants, and descendants of those early
residents of Plymouth, have cause to celebrate: 46 volumes of
the illustrious Mayflower Descendant (publication of the
Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants) are now available
on Family Archive. Those of you familiar with Mayflower research
will recognize the name of editor of the first 34 volumes —
George Ernest Bowman, noted Mayflower researcher. Bowman, secretary
for the Society 1896-1941, transcribed thousands of records that
would later be published in the Mayflower Descendant. You'll
find information on approximately 200,000 individuals; the bulk
of the information found falls in the period of 1600 to 1800,
although I did see some references outside that time period. Volumes
1-46 were published from to 1899 to 1996.
The CD contains more than just the Mayflower Descendant;
also included are a list of the Mayflower passengers (not just
those who signed the Mayflower Compact), Middleborough, MA Vital
Records (Volumes 1 and 2), and Pilgrim Notes and Queries, Volumes
1-5 (edited by George Bowman). As with other Genealogy.com CDs,
all names are indexed, and can be searched using the Search Expert
feature, or by browsing through the master name Index. You'll
find images of each page from the 46 volumes of the Mayflower
Descendant; browsing through, I did not see any pages that
did not reproduce well, and was impressed with the quality of
the images.
While my first instinct to search for my known Mayflower ancestors
was rewarded with many hits, I found myself browsing through the
volumes rather than searching for individuals. The Mayflower
Descendant is a fascinating look at the Pilgrims and Colony
members, with articles on a large variety of subjects; everything
from the division of cattle amongst Plymouth members, to cemetery
records, diaries, church records, vital records, deeds, wills,
depositions, biographical features, inventories, notes, headstone
pictures, autographs, miscellaneous records, in-depth features
on the Mayflower passengers and their life in Plymouth, probate
records, letters, and regular columns can be found in the Descendant's
pages. Volume 17, for example, has the following contents (in
addition to the tables of contents, indexes, and title pages):
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July
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Each volume retains its own title page, as well as the title
page, table of contents, and index of persons and places for each
issue (four issues per volume). I found the the Index to Subjects
in this Section (Volume), located at the beginning of each volume,
the most useful item; the subject index told me at a glance what
church and cemetery records (items I am particularly interested
in, were included in that issue). Other subjects listed included
deeds (grantors, grantees, and abstracts), information about various
ships, illustrations, marriage records, wills and inventories,
and vital records by town.
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I had so much fun browsing through and reading various
articles, I found myself wishing there were a way to search
for items other than individuals; although the individuals
are searchable, you don't have any way to search for other
text. If you are researching a particular subject, or are
just interested in a specific aspect of Plymouth Colony
life, you can view each issue's subject and location indexes
for items of interest.
When I conducted a search on one of my Mayflower Ancestors,
I found over 400 references to him (and his son, who had
the same name). I also found over 100 references to a Plymouth
Colony member who married a Mayflower passenger, which indicates
the material is not strictly limited to Mayflower passengers.
If you have Mayflower Ancestors you will want to check out
this CD — the ability to have 46 volumes of the informative,
fascinating, Mayflower Descendant at your fingertips,
is of interest to all Mayflower and Plymouth Colony researchers.
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Marthe Arends has
been involved in genealogy for 18 years. She has lectured on computers and genealogy
to many groups, has been the SysOp of a Fidonet genealogy BBS, has written articles
for a variety of genealogy publications, and currently writes fiction. Marthe has also written Genealogy
Software Guide and Genealogy
on CD-ROM, both published by the Genealogical
Publishing Company.
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