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I am just catching up from being away with family for Thanksgiving, and come back to see at least 4 of us who are Mayflower descendants.

I wonder if there are way more than 6% represented among us Freepers, and that we have inherited some genes that keep us from taking the wide and easy path, and refuse to go along to get along.

An independent spirit, and the courage, as you said, to go against existing authority, if they felt it repression.

No idea, but it did occur to me that there is always a small percentage that says, “no more!”

And for all of those who left later, came here with only a few dollars in their pocket, we must remember that they are cut from the same cloth, and it took just as much courage to leave everyone and everything behind. They are our brothers and sisters, just a few generations younger.

>>at least 4 of us who are Mayflower descendants

Not me. My family were the latecomers that arrived in the 1650s.

>>we have inherited some genes that keep us from taking the wide and easy path, and refuse to go along to get along

In childhood, mother always called me Contrary Mary, but I never thought of it as a compliment. I went to U of Chicago, and they TRIED to teach us that environment was all, because then they could change everything. Never believed them. Convinced we’re a mix of heredity AND environment. Natural traits can be modified, but not eradicated.

Character traits are the same as eye color. I always felt like a cuckoo in the nest because so many of my traits were diametrically opposed to those who raised me. So genealogy is, for me, a way to discover where those characteristics descended from. In my mind, I see genealogy as a multicolored knitting thread that is difficult, but not impossible, to trace back.

So, yes, “An independent spirit, and the courage, as you said, to go against existing authority, if they felt it repression.” is probably one of those multicolored threads. Some of those characteristics came to us from people who left Dodge because they had a better chance to live taking a boat across an ocean in desperation. But some of those came to us from the people who stayed behind and fought - even if they died. Luckily for us, only AFTER leaving behind small threads to grow and reproduce on their native soil. Those people came later and brought us their own colored threads.

To me, those who kept those thread colors bright and glowing, like the soldiers on our threads, are the ones I honor and feel humbled by. I’m a bureaucrat. My color has faded into obscurity from colors that were once bright. But so many on this list show an integrity that is well represented on Thanksgiving in a toast to ancestors who gave them the internal fortitude to keep up the good fight. Whether or not they shared their bounty with native Americans or with the poor Polish traveler passing through their village.

The ancestors of all of us are the original ingredients. We’re the resulting dish that you can only hope is well flavored and tasty. And to be shared with the dearest friends.