[Clinging Bitterly]

>> Is this a typo?

Well, yes and no. I had intended to make reference to the time of the Declaration of Independence, but the lifetimes that spanned the turn of the 16th/17th centuries got me thinking Mayflower. I have some references to dates and places that were written by family menbers in the past 50 years, but the only thing that's verifiable is an arrival in New Haven, CT in 1639, of a group of English Puritans, one of whom was an ancestor, who then bought the land that became the town of Guilford. It is said that the other line from which I descend (my dad's side) arrived among the Quakers into MA circa 1650. There's not much written that actually ties my family to this group of immigrants. It seems the Quakers were not highly regarded by the Puritans. The debate then was whether to have them hanged, or to "be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and tied to a cart's tail and whipped through the town". Whatever else happened to them, their books and historical documents were confiscated and burned.

Dave in Eugene

[patriciaruth]

As I recall the Mayflower carried the first settlers to the future United States that have descendants here, as the settlers in the earlier Virginia colony were all wiped out.

Thus your ancestors couldn't have arrived 100 years before the Mayflower, unless they were just exploring and then went back to England. Of course, they could have come 100 years before the Declaration of Independence.

My father used to do genealogy research and had a large library. When I moved him and mother into a retirement complex, I gave most of his library and research to the Mormons. It was quite a treasure trove.