The Mayflower Passengers: The Second Generation

The descendants of John Tanner (b. 15 August 1778, d. 13 April 1850) trace their ancestry back to Mayflower passengers, Francis Cooke (b. abt. 1582, d. 7 April 1763), his son John Cooke (b. abt. 1606, d. 23 November 1695) and Richard Warren (b. abt. 1579, d. 1628).  Documentation on the first generation passengers is scanty due, in part, to the time period involved but also to the circumstances of their arrival. However, documentation of the succeeding generations is much more complete.

Although there are literally hundreds of different family trees online that show different information about these early families, the differences are only due to a lack of reference to the long accepted and documents sources. In the case of the ancestry of the John Tanner connection to the Mayflower Passengers, there is no controversy or question about the details of his pedigree.[1]

John Cooke married Sarah Warren (b. abt. 1614, d. aft. 15 July 1696) on 28 March 1634 in New Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts.  The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plimoth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith.[2]

John Cooke and Sarah Warren Cooke had five children, all girls.  The following dates come from the set of books cited as follows:

Kellogg, Lucy Mary, Edna W. Townsend, and Robert S. Wakefield. Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975.

Their daughters were:

• Sarah (b. abt. 1635, d. 1713)
• Elizabeth (b. abt. 1635, d. 6 December 1715)
• Hesther (Esther) (b. 16 August 1650, d. 1672)
• Mary (b. abt 1652, d. between 26 April 1708 and 25 January 1714/15)
• Mercy (b. 25 July 1654, d. 21 November 1733)

The John Tanner family descendants came through the daughter Mary.

Selected Bibliography

Ancestry.com. Mayflower Births and Deaths, Vol. 1 and 2 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

Ancestry.com. Mayflower Deeds and Probates, 1600-1850 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants. The Mayflower Descendant: A Quarterly Magazine of Pilgrim Genealogy and History. Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1899.

Landis, John Tannehill. Mayflower Descendants and Their Marriages for Two Generations After the Landing Including a Short History of the Church of the Pilgrim Founders of New England. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co, 1972.

Terry, Milton E., and Anne Borden Harding. Mayflower Ancestral Index. Plymouth, Mass: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1981.

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[1] Kellogg, Lucy Mary, Edna W. Townsend, and Robert S. Wakefield. Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1975.

[2] Wikipedia: Plymouth Colony

The picture of Plymouth Plantation is from a vacation to Massachusetts last year. ATT.