New Partnership Makes it Easier to Prove Pilgrim Ancestry

BOSTON (AP) — So you think you’re descended from a Pilgrim?

It’s now easier to find out.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society and the General Society of Mayflower Descendants on Thursday announced a partnership to digitize and post online Mayflower Pilgrim genealogies and 50 years’ worth of the “Mayflower Quarterly” magazine.

Lea Filson is governor general of the Plymouth-based Mayflower Descendants organization. She says the number of people interested in finding out of they are descended from a Mayflower passenger is surging with the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s voyage approaching in 2020. Yet society records have been difficult to access. The digitization process will make that easier.

An estimated 10 million living Americans and as many as 35 million people worldwide are descended from the Pilgrims.