Genealogy Jottings

Lineage societies require exacting proof of generational links to a specific ancestor before they grant membership to an applicant. This week I began the process for the Mayflower Society. Right away I found that despite years of research, I do not have the exact documents they want.

This week I gathered papers for the most current three generations in my chain of descent, beginning with myself and my husband/tech advisor. Already I was missing several of the items they require:

1. We have our marriage certificate but not the vital record from the state where we were married. I ordered a copy.
2. I also have my parents’ marriage certificate, but again I do not have a copy of the vital record. I ordered one of those, too.
3. The document I thought was my mother’s birth certificate is something else. It was issued by the Bureau of the Census and simply verifies that her birth was registered in Montana. I sent a request to Montana for her birth registration.
4. For people living in 1900, the Society wants a copy of their U.S. census record for that year. I have it for my grandmother, Grace Riddle, but not for my grandfather Herbert Reed. I have never been able to locate him and his family on the 1900 census. They must have lived in Missouri where he was born in 1896 and his parents were divorced in 1904. Will the Society waive this requirement when I am not applying though my grandfather’s line? Or would either the divorce decree naming my grandfather as a minor child or the 1910 census be an adequate substitute?
5. I do not have a birth record for my grandmother. She was born on a homestead in Nebraska before the state kept vital records. I do not know whether she was baptized. She never had a driver’s license or a passport. Will a combination of census records, her Social Security application, and her death certificate be sufficient to prove her birth date and place?

Encountering these stumbling blocks for 20^th century ancestors makes me shudder to think what I will encounter in documenting earlier generations. I have four more to go before I link up to Thomas Snow and Hannah Lincoln, both proven descendants of Stephen Hopkins. Some of my documentation is pretty thin.

I wonder how many families can run a straightforward line of proofs from themselves back 7 or so generations to a proven Mayflower descendant. I must work with the historian of the Colorado branch of the Mayflower Society to gather enough evidence to complete my application.

Once I execute a preliminary application, I will have two years to submit the final one. It will be interesting to see what they say about all the evidence I have gathered. Will I be able to meet the additional demands I know they will make? This could be a long process.