Andrew C Wells – Historian for the Australian Society
Congratulations on achieving proof of lineage to a Mayflower passenger! Just because you’re now a member doesn’t mean the research ends. Many potential applications don’t even get this far, winding up categorized as possible instead of at least probably proven. You should consider it fortunate that enough evidence remained through the centuries to achieve this desirable genealogical goal of proof. That’s what separates claims of descendancy from certification. There’s an overall standard applied to every generation you claimed: the General Society policy of “Proof of Same”. This is where most of the unsuccessful applications falter. It means a line-carrier named for each generation must be shown to have been the same person born, who later had children. For example, someone born in a different geographical location from where they raised a family, is going to require evidence they are not different people. Each generation that relocates, makes the task of proving they are the same, more difficult. This is especially true for migrations from America to Australia. Unless the ancestor(s) who came to Australia are fairly recent, proof can be elusive.
Your successful application scan with membership endorsements, has each generation rated. The following notation is used in the left-hand margins of all applications:
· C1 - Indicates the connection for the individual to their line-carrying parent is supported by primary sources that directly state relationships.
· C2 - Indicates the connection for the individual to their line-carrying parent is supported by secondary sources that directly state relationships.
· C - Indicates the connection for the individual to their line-carrying parent is supported by circumstantial evidence.
Even if all generations achieve the best possible rating of C1, there may still be additional research for a line-carrier’s spouse or multiple marriages. Sometimes a rating is further qualified with marginal notes such as “weak”, “very weak”, or “single secondary source”. There may also be notes for documents which should be available, that weren’t provided at the time you applied. None of this affected your lineage being certified, or your membership. However, it can affect future memberships which rely on your approved lineage. If your application scan has marginal notes, these may need to be resolved before a child, grandchild, or even a cousin’s eligibility is sought.
My own application was missing a marriage certificate for my line-carrier great-grandmother. I had only the marriage certificate for her second marriage, and other documents. The generation was still rated C1. The problem was not knowing where the first marriage took place. She and her husband are not found by federal census for 1910, and he died before 1920. In addition, her place of birth in Rhode Island is cited for three different locations. After becoming a member, I sought to fill in this and other holes. I knew there was an initial marriage because her later Massachusetts one shows she was widowed and was her second. Eventually I risked a paying for a “record not found”, and had the town of Smithfield, RI where their daughter, my grandmother was raised, do a record search. They had quickly relocated to Boston after the marriage, and my infant grandmother was sent back to Rhode Island to live with her maternal grandparents. Smithfield was the correct location, and in 2019 I was mailed the certificate. I never knew the marriage was 29 Oct 1903 until after becoming a member. This certificate was then used as one of several hundred documents, when applying for membership in another society.
Another example of where research might continue, are with generations supported only by secondary source evidence rated C2. Typically, these are earlier generations for which the only evidence provided was from published genealogies, local histories or biographies. Older publications may have exact dates and places for complete family events. Births or baptisms can be cited with or without references. The task here, is to figure out where the author sourced the information. Read the preface and acknowledgement pages to see if personal sources are credited, as a fair amount of genealogy was word-of-mouth in correspondence with living family members. That’s not going to help, although it’s also possible the author travelled to various townships and counties where original records were kept, and transcribed. These same documents could have been microfilmed and are simply waiting for an effort at reviewing. Try to determine if there was any damage or destruction of vital records, most likely due to fire, at the place where they were kept before taking time to go through reels of microfilm. Cemetery evidence could also have been sighted by the author, without source citation. If you can find one family member, often enough more of that family is together in the same resting place. The family of a line-carrier’s spouse should not be overlooked for possible published genealogies. Finding additional secondary sources is another way to address any marginal comments such as “very weak” or “single secondary source”.
Even if you have every possible scrap of evidence already collected or cited on your application scan, there are still siblings of each line carrier to consider. While this doesn’t improve on your lineage, it can help cousins who are interested in applying. For each parent of the spouse of a line-carrier, it’s recommended to try to determine those grandparents as well. The additional family names thus uncovered, can point toward additional possible qualifying Mayflower passengers. The idea here is to see if other lines can be developed to where they would fall within the first five or six generations from the landing in New England. If you can trace lines from some of the spouses back to the first half of the 18th century, it’s then a relatively simple task to see if these people have Mayflower ancestors, thus opening the possibility of a supplemental ancestor for you!
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