How many people made it over on the Mayflower and how is it that so many of their descendants are on this very message board?
IIRC, JRDelirious is Puerto Rican.
100 on the Mayflower, but in the generations since, they’ve had time to have a lot of descendants.
For myself, I have a great[sup]4[/sup] grandmother who was Shawnee, so very far back indeed on that line. Other than that, my first ancestor to come to the New World was a great[sup]5[/sup] grandfather who came over in 1775, and was an officer in the war. Family legend has it that he came here specifically for the opportunity to fight the English.
My most recent ancestor to come over was my paternal grandmother, who came from Rome as a young girl in the early 1900s.
2 things:
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Look at the math. 11 generations later, it’s possible for a passenger on the Mayflower to have an enormous amount of living relatives.
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Some of those people are repeating what has been told to them by their ancestors, who were repeating what they heard from theirs. It’s possible they are wrong.
I’d bank more on #1. I’d bet a huge number of people can trace their lineage back to the mayflower.
I can attest to having direct maternal and paternal ancesters born and raised not just in the US, but within a 20 mile radius of where I live right now, back to the mid-1800’s. It probably goes back further, but I’d have to dig out the family history books to verify exactly how far back.
We were able to trace dads’ side back to 1770s from England.
On moms’ side we got back to 1920s. Originally from France but then hung out in Canada for a couple of generations and then came on down to the US.
Some part of family has been in the US for as long as it has existed, and one family member had moved to the then-British colony of Massachusetts on a somewhat famous boat in 1620. The DNA was constantly refreshed, however, with new blood over the years, including some Pennsylvania Dutch in the 1800’s, a few white Bahamanians (an interesting story in itself), and finally a British WW1 vet in the 1920’s.
On my dad’s side, 3.
On my mom’s side, her dad’s family 4 and her mom’s, I’m not sure but many. There’s information about some of my ancestors in documents in the collection of a Connecticut historical society confirming they were here in the 1680s and 90s. I don’t know how many generations are between them and my great-grandfather and his parents. I also don’t know if they were the first generation to be born in the New World.
It’s not all that difficult to do, but it can take some time. I’ve done all the legwork and found that I’m descended from two Mayflower travelers, William Bradford and William Brewster. People had a LOT of children back in the day (Bradford and Brewster had at least eight between them, and the two children of theirs from whom I’m descended had six apiece), so as you say, if one does the math it’s not difficult to come up with a HUGE number of Mayflower descendents. In my immediate living family alone, there are now at least 45.
Three of my grandparents were first generation American’s, their parents having immigrated.
My paternal grandmother can be traced back to my 7th great-grandfather who was born in New London, CT in 1692. They decamped to Canada around 1760, though, and came back in 1841. All of that direct line was either born in what would be become the US, or, although born in Canada, died in the US. So, I’m not exactly sure how you would count that.
Three generations, both sides.
53 lived through the voyage. And after this many years, there has to be several thousand people related to them.
2 of my great-grandparents, on my Mom’s side, came over from Europe (Poland & Sweden).
nm
One estimate is around twenty million.
I’m 2nd generation, I think. (Born in NY)
Father was born in India, and became a naturalized US citizen in the 1960s.
Mother was born in US, her mother was Irish emigrant, as was her father’s father (don’t know father’s mother’s status).
On my mother’s side, at least the early 19th century. Father’s side, 16th-century Albany, New York area. Plus one ancestor was involved with the founding of Jamestown.
My mother’s father was an immigrant, as was my dad (he came over in his early 20s from Ireland - still got lots of family back across the ocean). Not sure what that makes me - maybe second generation? It’s a shame; I’ve always dreamt of joining DAR . . . 
On both sides of my family, a great-great grandfather came over from Ireland in the late 1800’s and married a Native American woman.
So, four generations on both g-g-grandfathers’ sides, and way longer than that on the g-g-grandmothers’s sides.
Old New Englander here. My mother was a member of the Howard family, which gave our country the politico Tafts. My brothers and their children and grandchildren still carry the “Howard” middle name.
My “Annie” is a direct line to Anne Lucy Howard, one of New England’s earliest settlers.
I’m too lazy to read through the whole thread, but I assume numerous people have pointed out how ridiculous the question is. You have 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great, etc. No way they all arrived in the US at the same time.
But since this is also a bragging thread, I had a direct ancestor at Jamestown in 1607. I also have a direct paternal thread (so the guy had the same last name as me) arriving in Virginia by 1630, because he bought land around present day White Stone that year.
That makes me just a little bit more American than most other people.</sarcasm>