Genealogy Jottings

In my quest to join the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (GSMD), I have completed another step.

The Colorado Historian has reviewed and accepted the supporting documentation I provided for my Mayflower line. This week she sent me an official application form which I promptly executed and returned to her.

Now my application will be forwarded to the GSMD Historian General in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It will be reviewed in that office to verify I have provided sufficient documentation for membership.

I have no idea how long this will take. Nor do I know whether my paperwork will meet their standards of proof.

I do know that they prefer primary sources like vital records or wills to prove dates and relationships. I was able to gather those for most generations.

Yet for one generation I could not find a primary source proving the relationship. The only document I could uncover that shows my ancestor Lucy Snow Hall (1760-1795) is the same person as Lucy, daughter of Thomas Snow and Hannah Lincoln, is genealogy for the Hall family in The Encyclopedia of Massachusetts, published in 1916. Will this be enough?

So far, I have uncovered no other proof. Since no one else who descends from Lucy has joined the GSMD, the Society files contain nothing to help me.

One person who descended from Lucy’s brother Edward Snow (1763-bet. 1829 and 1832) has joined. That application was made years ago and gives no hint on how they connected Edward Snow, son of Thomas and Hannah, to Edward Snow, husband of Catharine Mayo. Perhaps standards were looser then, and they offered no proof.

I can only wait and see what they decide. Regardless of whether my application gets approved or not, I have satisfied myself that I have found the correct lineage.