Mayflower Descendant

First published in 1899 by George Ernest Bowman, founder of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, which published the journal until 2014, Mayflower Descendant has long been a highly regarded source of scholarship relating to Mayflower families and their genealogies, their origins in England, and their lives and places of residence in America, from the earliest settlements to their migrations north and westward. Under American Ancestors, Mayflower Descendant continues to be a significant source of genealogical and historical scholarship.

Topics to be explored in forthcoming issues:

• Further genealogical analysis of Pilgrim families in New England and their origins in England and the Netherlands.
• Towns in Plymouth Colony, England, and the Netherlands with which Pilgrims are associated (similar to items in The Great Migration Newsletter).
• Genealogical summaries of families in eastern Massachusetts into which Mayflower descendants married, with which they were often associated, or which bore Pilgrim surnames.
• Mayflower families beyond the fifth generation, often in locations beyond eastern Massachusetts (the “Mayflower diaspora”).
• Further record transcription from eastern Massachusetts or from areas into which Mayflower descendants moved.

General guidelines

• It is advisable to send an email describing your proposed article to the editor at mayflower@americanancestors.org.
• Ideally, your article should be written as a Microsoft Word file and submitted as an email attachment to mayflower@americanancestors.org. If you prefer to submit a paper copy or a file on CD, mail to Editor, Mayflower Descendant, 97 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116.
• Please consider sending us copies or scans of original documents along with your article.
• Please do not submit articles that have been published previously, either in print or online.
• Please do not submit an article that you are also submitting to another journal.

Download a Register-style template.

How to submit an article

The editor welcomes articles, especially from new authors. Articles typically focus on subjects of interest to descendants of early Massachusetts residents and fall into one of the following categories:

1. continuing genealogical analysis of the Pilgrim families in New England and their origins in England and Holland, and re-examinations of older problems;
2. focus on towns, both in Plymouth Colony and in England and Holland from whence Pilgrims sprang;
3. genealogical summaries of other “non-Mayflower” families in eastern Massachusetts;
4. treatment of Mayflower families, often beyond the fifth generation, in geographical locations beyond eastern Massachusetts, highlighting the Mayflower “diaspora”; and
5. continued record transcription of important genealogical records.

Writing guidelines

• In Microsoft Word, use 12-point type, with notes in 10-point type, and with 1.5-inch side margins. You can download a Register-style template or use Microsoft Word’s “normal” style.
• Please do not create your own formatting and styles; do not use any automatic features or indexing.
• If applicable, try to identify the parents of spouses mentioned in the article.
• Pay attention to double dating, i.e., dates in January through March before 1752. It may be necessary to view the original record (if possible) to determine the correct date.
• Ensure that you have included a citation for each statement of fact that is not common knowledge. Each should be cited to one or more reliable sources.

If you are writing about a seventeenth-century New England family, please consult the following three works and review the sources suggested in each:

• Clarence Almon Torrey, New England Marriages Prior to 1700, CD-ROM (American Ancestors, 2011), which is also available on CD-ROM and as a database at AmericanAncestors.org.
• Melinde Lutz Sanborn, Third Supplement to Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2003).
• Martin E. Hollick, New Englanders in the 1600s: A Guide to Genealogical Research Published Between 1980 and 2010, Expanded Edition (American Ancestors, 2012).
• Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640, A Concise Compendium (American Ancestors, 2015).