In 1620, Miles Standish led 101 other Mayflower colonists ashore in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. He battled Indians, took part in the first Thanksgiving and inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's classic poem about his unrequited love for a Pilgrim maiden. Although historians recorded much about the feisty old soldier, he took one piece of vital data to his grave 348 years ago: the whereabouts of his birth. His descendants have been guessing for years where he was born. Now DNA testing may be able to solve this 400-year-old mystery.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, staff reporters Robert Tomsho and Emily Nelson describe the testing already done as well as more tests planned for the future. You can read the article if you click here.
My thanks to Walt Newcomb for telling me about the article.
This was a very interesting story. Researching with the help of DNA will probably rewrite a lot of history once the biological truth is known!
Posted by: Vicky Bair | November 30, 2004 at 08:57 AM
Not the point of the story, but the first official Thanksgiving was in Virginia on December 4, 1619 at Berkeley. Even JFK acknowledged it in a letter or a speech. Talk about rewriting history. The pilgrims really got their story on the front page. A genealogist should seek the truth.
Berkeley Plantation explains it at their site
http://www.berkeleyplantation.com/Thanks.shtml
Posted by: Darrell Davis | November 30, 2004 at 12:39 PM
The first recorded Thanksgiving on the North American continent conducted by Europeans occured on April 30, 1598. 400 Spanish men and women, one Greek, a man from Flanders, and an unknown number of Mexican Indians and mestizos (mixed bloods), all led by Don Juan de Oñate, held a Thanksgiving service near what is now El Paso Texas. The New Mexico Genealogical Society has an article about the first Thanksgiving on their web site at http://www.nmgs.org/art1stThanks.htm.
Posted by: Dick Eastman | November 30, 2004 at 03:34 PM
It is good to know about the 1598 celebration. Seems like I have heard that before. Again, the Pilgrims and their followers were champion promoters. I still like the prayer at Berkeley, Virginia as a more thankful one. Good luck New Mexico. You have an uphill battle against all the classrooms in our great (but not always correct) country.
Posted by: Darrell Davis | December 06, 2004 at 11:37 AM
DNA testing will not tell the whereabouts on the birthplace of Miles Standish. At best any conclusion derived from the DNA results will give a very general location as to the origin of his paternal or maternal ancestry. So for all intent and purpose one might as well say, Miles Standish was born somewhere on planet Earth, that would be just as accurate as anything concluded from DNA testing.
Posted by: Richard Cottrell | December 08, 2004 at 01:15 AM