Mayflower Memories
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors.”
— James Baldwin
Story and photos by Laurie McAndish King
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, William and Susanna White, immigrated to America on the Mayflower. They are heralded as the parents of Peregrine White, born in November 1620, while the Mayflower was still anchored in Cape Cod — and famous as “the first born child of New England,” a moniker that conveniently ignored all the indigenous people who had lived here for tens of thousands of years.
I knew little about this background growing up, but when my grandmother died, Dad inherited her papers and became fascinated with the historical documents she’d kept: birth and death records, old newspaper clippings, and family histories that had been hand-written generations ago. He dove into genealogy and eventually constructed a family tree detailing four hundred years’ worth of names, dates, and relationships and hung the convoluted illustration on a hallway wall in our house — a constant reminder of our distinguished history.
So when my husband, Jim, and I traveled to England many years later, the first item on my to-do list was visiting the…
