Mayflower: Proofs Accepted!

About six weeks ago I sent an application for membership, along with all the proofs documenting my lineage, to the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD).  I believed my documentation proved that I am a descendant of Peter Brown – a Mayflower (1620) passenger and signer of the Mayflower Compact. Today I got a letter from the GSMD informing me that my application for membership was approved. Success!

To be clear, this means that any descendants of my grandfather — Roy G. Crosby (1878-1954) — are also descendants of Peter Brown (≈1593-1633).  What follows is my proven lineage:

Peter Brown> Mary Brown [Tinkham]> Helkiah Tinkham> John Tinkham> Edward Tinkham> Seth Tinkham I> **Seth Tinkham II> Benjamin Tinkham> Sarah Tinkham [Crosby]> Roy Crosby> Maurice Crosby> Maurice Crosby Jr.

The approval is important because this means the proofs have been validated by another entity. Removed is the possibility that wishful thinking, or poor research, influenced my conclusions. All-in-all it was an enjoyable time. Investigating history is more fun than simply reading it.

Fortunately, I did not have to prove the entire family line.  Other GSMD members, sometimes decades ago, previously proved some of my lineage while proving theirs.  In the case of the Crosbys, proof was only needed to **Seth (II).  Even so, gathering the accepted proofs was no cakewalk because Seth (II) lived from 1789 to 1847 in the territory of Nova Scotia. (The country of Canada was not formed until 1867.) At that time the only records confirming birth and parentage would be christening records kept by churches.

Gathering the necessary proofs — birth, death and marriage records — went fairly smooth. The one stumbling block was Benjamin Tinkham.  A 1898 genealogy article in the Yarmouth Herald (Nova Scotia) about the Tinkham family made a single reference to Seth (II) having a son Benjamin. However, the listing did not include any date of birth, marriage or death. Two valuable clues were included though: Benjamin married Eliza Landers, daughter of Thomas. This corroborated information that was already known. Eliza’s death certificate listed Benjamin as her husband and her father’s name as Thomas Landers.

In my mind this was proof. However, the proof standards of the GSMD are rather stringent and “secondary sources”, like a published genealogy lacking citations for facts, are not excepted alone; the 1898 Yarmouth Herald article was just that.  More digging was needed.  Eliza and all 11 of her children were researched. Fortunately my cousin, Patricia Lin (Crosby) already had a great deal of information about the extended family.

After examining all the information we found that the last mention of Benjamin, while alive, was on the 1881 Canadian census. We also knew that Eliza never again appeared on a Canadian census and that she died in Danvers MA (suburb of Boston, MA) on 1908.  Somewhere between 1881 and 1908 was the information needed!

A 1886 City Directory for Danvers listed “Eliza Tinkham, widow of Benjamin” and showed she lived on Central Ave.  Also listed was Hartley Tinkham of Central Ave.  My Benjamin and Eliza had a son Hartley, so there was little doubt that this Eliza was my 2nd Great-Grandmother. The window was now narrowed to 1881-1886 and the Danvers/Boston area became the focus. The narrowing of the facts and the fantastic resources on the Internet led to the discovery of Benjamin’s death record. Benjamin died in Boston on 28 May 1881; his father was listed as “Seth” from Nova Scotia.

The information listed on the death records of Benjamin and Eliza each supported the information in the Yarmouth Herald article.  The three sources combined established the connection between Benjamin and his father, Seth (II), and were accepted by the GSMD.

While researching the Mayflower connection I discovered that John Tinkham’s wife, Ann Gray [1691-1730] was descended from James Chilton, another Mayflower passenger and signer of the Mayflower Compact.  Ann Gray’s lineage to James Chilton is well established and, now that the Crosby lineage is accepted, all that is needed is the formality of applying.

In total, the descendants of Roy Crosby are related to four Mayflower passengers. Peter Brown, James Chilton & Wife and their daughter Mary Chilton. More will be written about them all.