Pilgrims

  This year the kids and I have been trying out a new History curriculum.  We have been working our way through Beautiful Feet's Early American History and loving the literature based curriculum!  We have been spending the last several weeks on the Pilgrims.  Since early in my genealogical career, I have known that I was descended from Mayflower Pilgrim Francis Cooke on my Williams side.  He's not one of the guys you always hear about, but that he made that hard journey and persevered is enough for me. Another neat slant is that some of our buddies are descended from the Mayflower Billingtons (ever hear of the boy that almost blew up the Mayflower?  I hadn't until they told us about their ancestor - you should find the story if you haven't heard it!) 

I love that our buddies' ancestor and ours lived so close together!

  So whenever applicable in our reading we would work in discussions about the people we knew in the story.   When my mom called one day with the news that we were descended from John Howland on my Dimmick side (the pilgrim that fell overboard on the journey over), I called the kids in for our daily history reading saying "I have a surprise for you!"  They responded, "Who are we related to?!?" What a way to increase a child's interest in history! 

John Howland's house

  Turns out we're also related to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins on the Chapman side. 

Of course, all this discussion of early American ancestors led to a discussion on Pocahontas. Now Mookie is campaigning for me to find a link to one of her favorite heroes:)  I can't say I would be disappointed to find that! :)