RSVP: Meet-Up Mayflower Descendants

Service Description

The story of the Mayflower is one of the best-known chapters in early American history — but its descendants now live all over the world, including here in Australia. Join your host, Daniel N. Arnold, a double Mayflower descendant through Francis Cooke and Samuel Fuller, for a free social meet-up of Australian descendants of Mayflower passengers, as well as anyone researching a possible Mayflower connection. The emphasis is deliberately informal. This is not a lecture, seminar or formal genealogy workshop. It is an opportunity to sit down over coffee, meet others who share this fascinating part of family history, compare ancestral lines, exchange discoveries and talk about the people and stories behind the pedigrees. Some participants may already have a well-documented descent from one or more Mayflower passengers. Others may have recently discovered a possible connection through an online family tree, DNA match, family tradition or historical research and are still trying to establish whether the line can be proven. Both are equally welcome. The meet-up provides an opportunity to compare Mayflower ancestors and descendant lines, discuss useful records and research sources, share experiences with lineage verification, and perhaps even discover that another person in the room is a distant cousin. It is also a chance to explore the wider stories surrounding these families: how descendants spread across New England and later across North America, how individual family lines developed over the centuries, and eventually how some of those descendants found their way to Australia. You do not need to belong to a Mayflower organisation or have a formally verified lineage to attend. Nor do you need extensive genealogical experience. An interest in the subject — or a reasonable suspicion that you may have a Mayflower ancestor — is enough. If you have already researched your connection, feel free to bring along your family tree, notes, photographs or information about your Mayflower line. If you are still investigating, you are equally welcome to come along, ask questions and hear how others established their own connections. Above all, the event is intended to be social. Genealogy can involve many hours of solitary research, and one of the pleasures of discovering an ancestral connection is being able to share it with people who understand why it is interesting. Attendance is free. Come along, meet some very distant cousins, exchange a few family stories, and