When Sun City resident Jill McCarron celebrates Thanksgiving, it is with the knowledge that she is related to one of the pilgrims to which the American holiday traces its roots.
McCarron said, “I have always been interested in my ancestry, but it wasn’t until Ancestry.com became available that I started searching earnestly. In recent years, this past year in particular, more information has been available on ancestry than ever before. Because of this new information, I have defined my background to an amazing degree. I love resolving challenges and puzzles; this was another puzzle for me.”
Researching, McCarron found information and documentation about her ancestors, including Mayflower passengers. Only 51 out of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower had children. Just 12 or 16 generations later, an estimated 35 million people can trace their ancestry to one of these 51 passengers.
McCarron Said, “There are over four passengers of the Mayflower who are my ancestors. In particular, I descend from Mayflower passenger Francis Cook and his Huguenot wife, Hester Mahieu. To name a few others who descend from Francis Cook and Hester Mahieu: Richard Gere, Orson Wells, Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys, and American artist Cephas Thompson. Over the years, I have been searching ancestry.com off and on to discover more about my background, which has led me down rabbit holes of time that I lost following leads on ancestry. Sometimes, days were lost in searching and finding information. While down those rabbit holes, I found interesting information about both families.”
McCarron found a long line of ancestors who served in the military dating back to the Revolutionary War. Her military ancestors included those who served in the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War on both the Union and Confederate sides, World War I, World War II, and more recently, serving in the United States Army in the early 1950s.
“One of my ancestors developed and patented an American Revolutionary War rifle. There were Puritans, Quakers, and Lutherans, ancestors who were royalty in Sweden, Denmark, and England, and some Vikings. Ancestors who enslaved people, and one ancestor who bought his passage over from England as an indentured servant to a doctor.”
Most of these McCarron’s ancestors in colonial America were from her father’s side. McCarron’s mother’s side came from Sweden and Norway and were farmers. At some point, both family lines ended up in the Minnesota area.
McCarron said, “It was exciting and fulfilling to follow these ancestors from Europe to Minnesota and eventually to me.”
Anyone interested in researching their ancestry can start on ancestry.com and newspapers.com.
