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[ USGenWeb Plymouth, MA ]
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USGenWeb Project
Plymouth Genealogy Related Sites
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Dedication Plaque USGenWeb Project for Plymouth, Plymouth Co., MA. This website is dedicate to *all* our Immigrant-Progenitor Forebearers - The men and women who braved the trials and tribulations of immigration through the centuries - 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s. Much is on the Web about the original Mayflower Pilgrims, but they were just the opening bell. The purpose of this website is to dig deeply into all the ancestral lines that touched the town of Plymouth. Volunteers are needed for "Look-ups," "Roll Call," Narratives, etc. How about adding your name as a volunteer in remembrance of your Plymouth forebearer? |
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Thanksgiving |
The following Thanksgiving message was included on this site because it came on-line November 1, 1998. I felt it was and still is appropriate and should be remembered all year long: What a wonderful time of the year it is to commence a Plymouth genealogy website - the Thanksgiving season! Our forebears were thankful for a fruitful harvest and for surviving their first year. How thankful we should be that they did! Those original Pilgrims of 1620 may or may not be your direct line ancestors but their ideals were the ancestors, grandparents, of our political ideals of today. I pray that all will pause a moment during this Thanksgiving season to remember those faithful survivors who planted the first seeds of our liberty of today and give thanks *for* them. As to the history of the Thanksgiving Day we celebrate today, there isn't much I can tell you that you don't know or can't find ready sources or links for details. Do note though, it didn't become an national holiday until 1863 by order of Abraham Lincoln. There are many wonderful Thanksgiving websites on the Internet. They cover such topics as: events leading up to the first one; reasons for it: surviving and bountiful first harvest thanks to the ready advise and help of Native Americans; who attended: Native Americans and Pilgrims; foods served, recipes; activities and games played that day; history of the evolution of the 1st Thanksgiving to today's celebration... I have tried to weed through the many Thanksgiving/Pilgrim websites to come up with the following list of specific sites telling of the first Thanksgiving in 1621. Do wander around these 3 well done informative Thanksgiving sites by exploring all the links on their pages: |
| Thanksgiving "Celebrate Thanksgiving with the Pilgrim Hall Museum" The 1621
Thanksgiving The First Pilgrim
Thanksgiving Thanksgiving |
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Plymouth History |
| Plymouth, the county seat of Plymouth County, is located on the
southeast shore of Boston Bay and may be considered the "hometown" of New
England and possibly of our country. Today its land area covers 96 sq. miles. The history
of the town runs from Native Americans,
Pilgrim Separatists, to many immigrants and newer arrivals whose ancestors came from
various world ports. Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the New England region of today were inhabited by Paleo Indians, before 7,500 B.C. as evident by Paleo archeology discoveries at three sites in New England. By the 1600s the descendants of these earliest inhabitants were part of the "Algonquin Family... the Pequots of Connecticut; the Naragansetts of Rhode Island; the Wampanoags of Rhode Island and Massachusetts; the Pawtuckets of Massachusetts and New Hampshire; the Nipmucks who lived along the Connecticut River in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and southern Vermont; the Abenaki of Maine, New Hampshire, and northern Vermont; and the Massachusetts whose territories extended from Weymouth, Massachusetts to Portsmouth, N.H. on the east and from Thompsonville, Connecticut to Brattleboro, Vermont on the west."1 As late as 1617, the Patuxets, family tribe of Squanto and part of the Wampanoags, had a village at Plymouth, "large and prosperous, and with well-tended gardens." Squanto had been taken prisoner first in c1617 by the English Capt. Thomas Hunt and later by the Spanish as a slave. He made his way from Spain to England and back to New England. By the summer of 1619, "Patuxet was deserted, almost all of his people having been killed by an epidemic that swept through the village two years before."2 On 26 December 1620, the "Mayflower" arrived in Plymouth Harbor carrying a small but willing band of Pilgrims known as Separatists. Since the late 1500s they had yearned for a separate community of their own where they could practice their faith in peace. Most of them had moved, either to escape persecution or to join their friends and religious compatriots, from England to Leiden, Holland around 1608. They sailed back to England in 1620 - picking up more of their group plus others for the new world. They started out from England with 2 ships but shortly the "Speedwell" developed problems. They were forced to continue with only one ship, the "Mayflower." On arriving in Plymouth Harbor, they found the ruins of Patuxet and chose this as a site to build their settlement. These first white settlers numbered 120. Other ships carrying their friends and relative arrived in 1621, 1623, etc... The western flow of immigrants from the Old World to New never ceased to flow. Today the census of Plymouth is estimated at around 45,000 and untold thousands to millions of descendants of the early settlers are scattered across the country and around the world. That first small settlement of 120 people was incorporated as a town in 1620, expanded into Plymouth Colony (Plymouth Colony Grows) and joined with the Massachusetts Colony in 1692. The towns in Plymouth County, Bristol County, and Barnstable County, MA were originally part of Plymouth Colony whose roots were planted in Plymouth. 1 Leo Bonfanti, Biographies and Legends of the New England Indians in New England Historical Series, Vol. I (PPI No. 2721) (Wakefield, MA: Pride Publications, Inc., 1968), pp. 8, 11. 2 IBID., pp. 23, 24.
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Plymouth |
Churches Libraries, Societies and Museums Area Sites: Genealogy and History
Local Government General
Area Information
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Plymouth Roll Call |
Have you researched a Norwich family surname? Do you have a website with genealogy data on-line of a Norwich surname/family? If so come add your surname(s) to this listing with your website or E-mail address so others with similar interests may share. This listing will contain first the Norwich related surname and then the researcher's website or E-mail address.
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Future Plans |
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Credits
Special thanks to:
Sharon Barrows Sanzo for Time to Get Those Skeletons out of the Closet and pictures of Plymouth historical and genealogical related places.
Richard W. Griffith, CG, host of USGenWeb project of Wareham, Plymouth Co., MA, for 1790 Census of Plymouth, Plymouth Co., Massachusetts.
Plymouth Town Clerk's office - helpful staff.
Plymouth Society - Plymouth Hall Museum - helpful staff and informative website.
Plimoth Plantation informative website.
The Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth Project volunteers for contributing their time in typing up the transcriptions.
The Plymouth Look-up Library volunteers for contributing their time to answer Look-up requests.
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Site Problems
Do note, I live no where near MA and have never lived in Plymouth County. I have no other resources for the area than those on this site. If you have a problem with any pages or links on this site, please send an E-mail message to me:
- Telling the specific problem.
- Giving page address/URL of the page where the problem/broken link/etc... is located.
- Using "Plymouth Site Problems" as subject.
E-mail button is just a graphic - not E-mail hyperlinked.
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USGenWeb Plymouth, MA, commenced 1 Nov 1998.
This site created and maintained by Susan G. Taylor:
Last Updated: 13-Apr-2009
Copyright © 1998 - 2009 by Susan G. Taylor
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