NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – If you remember your grade school history, the very first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621.
The Pilgrims had sailed to America on the Mayflower, and today the newly-elected leader of the Mayflower Society lives in New Orleans.
Former local television host Lea Sinclair-Filson traces her family’s history all the way back to a woman who was just a child on the Mayflower when it landed at Plymouth Rock. In September, Sinclair-Filson was chosen to be the Governor General of the Mayflower Society— one of only four women ever to lead the national group and its 29,000 members.
Sinclair-Filson says the odds are greater than you might think that your own ancestors were on that ship.
“In all honesty,” she says, “your chances of being a descendant are better that you are– than you aren’t. Millions of people are Mayflower descendants.”
In fact, nearly four centuries after the Pilgrims first came to America there are Mayflower descendants of every nationality and race, an impressive genealogy for a small group of religious dissenters who were almost wiped out by their harsh surroundings.
About one hundred people were on the ship in 1620, and only half survived the first winter on land. In the fall of the following year, the surviving Pilgrims held a 3-day feast of thanksgiving with the Native Americans who had helped them learn to plant and grow the crops that kept them alive. “Your chances of being a descendant are better that you are– than you aren’t”
Pilgrim journals have given scholars most of their information about what that early life was like, and also a record of the first births, deaths, and marriages. But Sinclair-Filson is excited that DNA testing may soon reach back to the very bones of the Pilgrims, some of which are buried not far from Plymouth Rock.
Still, she says that whether you’re a descendant or not, finding the roots of your family tree has its own rewards.
“Just taking the journey,” she says, “gives you stability in a very uncertain world.”
For more information about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower, go to: themayflowersociety.org.