Apply for Membership

If you've done your lineage research and you’re confident of your findings, your next step is to contact the Australian Historian who can work with you on your application for membership.

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If you or a relative has previously joined the Mayflower Society in another country, please let our historian know as this will expedite the process. If you're not yet sure how you're connected to an original Mayflower passenger, see our guidance on how to research your lineage.

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Your application goes on quite a journey before you can become a member. These are the steps involved:

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1. Contact the Australian Society Historian and provide a proposed lineage consisting of the names of your line-carriers and their spouses.  Start with the Mayflower passenger and list each generation to the present. No places or dates are needed at this stage. 

2. The Historian will review your lineage and advise you of any issues.  To determine how many generations will need to be proved with documentation, the Historian requests the Librarian General to check whether there is an existing membership that matches your earlier generations.

3. Provide digital images of your documentation to the Historian for review.  Each generation consists of up to five events requiring documentation.  These are the birth, marriage and death of the line-carrier, along with the birth and death of the line-carrier's spouse. Additional documentation is required in some cases where the line-carrier is female and does not have the same family name at death as her children. The best documentation includes both parents and a mother's maiden name.

4. The Historian will advise of any potential issues and provide a draft of the formal application for your review, as documentation is acquired.

5. Now it's time for you to pay the General Society fee and first-year dues. Should your application not be accepted by the General Society, only the first-year dues are refundable. Six-months is granted to address any General Society concerns when an application is returned requesting more evidence.

6. Once the Australian Society has received payment, the Historian will submit the application package to Plymouth, including the supporting documentation.

7. Application processing time will vary depending on its complexity, although the General Society benchmark is 8-10 weeks from initial intake review.

8. If approved by the Historian General, an election will be held by the board of The Australian Society of Mayflower Descendants, Inc., and a certificate confirming descent from your Mayflower pilgrim ancestor, as well as your fully endorsed applications scan, will then be provided.

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