OUR MAYFLOWER FOREMOTHERS #2: Overview

SMITH-Harris/McCall-Howland/Tilley  OUR MAYFLOWER FOREMOTHERS: Story Index

Delving deeper into the earliest colonial branches of our GloverSmith family tree, I discovered a significant drawback about how genealogical research was done. It traditionally tended to focus on the lives and accomplishments of men while placing very little emphasis on the critical roles women played in the founding of America. They were, indeed, our first American “unsung heroines.” Theirs were the hands that rocked the cradle of America.

The work of modern genealogy is based on a direct ‘patrilineal’ system of tracing descent exclusively through the surname of the male lines. Our family tree is grafted from my father’s forefathers’ surname, Glover, and my mother’s forefathers’ surname, Smith. Likewise, all women born of these male ancestors have been first identified by their fathers’ surnames, and then by their husbands’. Therefore, the system defines us all by male lineage. This fact became particularly evident as I located and labeled the branches of our GloverSmith family leading back in time to 1620 Plymouth Colony. And, as I began to gather the stories of our Mayflower connections, I realized that history yields far more information about the lasting legacy of our early American forefathers than it does about their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. That’s just how history was written.

Colonial records tended to include the “head of the household” information about the men who followed their dreams across the Atlantic, often with wives and children in tow. From carefully-preserved records we know many details about our immigrant forefathers: when they arrived and became colonial freemen, the lands they purchased, the towns they helped to build, the civic and military services they provided, and the estates they typically left to their sons when they died. Unfortunately, there are very few records about our foremothers and their daughters: births, deaths, marriages and offspring. That’s about it. Fortunately, their stories were sometimes captured and preserved in the journals and letters of the times or passed down as oral history.

Every now and then, I do find hints of remarkable women ancestors buried among the leaves of long ago. Two women who made the history books included my 10^th Great-Grandmothers: Elizabeth Fones Winthrop, aka “The Winthrop Woman” and Frances Latham, aka “The Falconer’s Daughter” and “The Mother of Governors”.  In early Massachusetts, Elizabeth gained recognition by owning land at a time when women did not, but she also earned notoriety in what people saw as scandalous behavior for the times. In early Rhode Island, Frances, another strong woman, was admired mostly for her connections to notable men: her father, her sons, and her grandsons. Yet, when we look closer, we will see that every branch of our expansive family tree contains leaves upon which are written the names of the women who deserve to be remembered.  

So, my challenge has been to find a way to trace our Mayflower matrilineage in a way that recognizes the ‘untold’ contributions made by our foremothers when so little documentation exists about their lives. And the surname thing makes it awkward, too. For example, in the ‘patrilineal’ system, my father’s immigrant Glover line going back in time looks like this:

·         GLOVER (Thomas, Ira, Thomas, Isaac, William, Nehemiah, Immigrant John) All with the same surname.

But the same system looks much different when I trace my mother’s Mayflower ‘matrilineal’ line:

·         SMITH (E. Smith, Ona Dort Post, Mae Dort, Lydia Winsor, Mary Secord, Lydia Harris, Asa Harris, Faith McCall, Hannah Otis, Hannah Thacher, Lydia Gorham, Desire Howland, Immigrant Elizabeth Tilley, Immigrant Joan Hurst Tilley)

With the 1620-2020 Mayflower Quadricentenary just around the corner, it seems fitting to commemorate this special feminine lineage of our family tree and the women who -literally- created it for us. “Our Mayflower Foremothers” series will pick up where I left off after exploring the “linchpin Asa” Harris family line by tracing the female branches back to our two Mayflower foremothers: Elizabeth Tilley and her mother, Joan Hurst Tilley.   

In order to do this, however, I will have to examine the ‘patrilineal’ surnames of each of our Mayflower Foremothers going back from Faith McCall to her immigrant roots:

·         McCALL (Otis, Thacher, Gorham, Howland, Tilley, Hurst)

Through these family lines, one special branch of our family grew and each generation honored its early American roots by keeping this Mayflower connection alive, generation after generation, even when the original Mayflower surnames of Howland, Tilley, and Hurst disappeared through marriage.

In coming posts, I will share some interesting facts and poignant stories I have uncovered about each of the direct ancestors of my 6^th Great Grandmother, Faith McCall, whose great-great-great grandparents were John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, survivors of the 1620 voyage of the Mayflower.

Stay tuned!