The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Chelsea woman traces lineage to a leader of Mayflower Pilgrims
By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: March 27, 2008
A Chelsea woman has made her own mark on history by tracing her ancestry back to one of the leaders of the Pilgrims who landed near Plymouth, Mass., in November 1620.
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For her diligence in researching how her family history intersects American history, Schultz was recently accepted into the Society of Mayflower Descendants in Michigan.
"I didn't really believe it until they called and told me; I didn't want to get too excited about this," Schultz said.
Mayflower Society spokeswoman Beverly Poole said Schultz was able to link her heritage to Mayflower passenger William Brewster, who was one of the 103 passengers who signed the Mayflower Compact on Nov. 11, 1620.
In fact, he was the fourth signer of that landmark document, which indicated he was far from an ordinary passenger on the historic voyage.
"He was called Elder Brewster," Schultz said. "He was an acknowledged religious leader of the Pilgrims."
Schultz said the entire process of being accepted into the society took four years of painstaking research: two years to prove she and Brewster were related, then another two years to gather documentation, which consisted of birth certificates, death certificates, court and church records, etc.
"They are very detailed; the Society requires that you have to have specific documentation," Schultz said.
The Society has about 743 regular members and 485 junior members in Michigan, she explained, and meets twice a year in different parts of the state.
Ancestry is not an honorary membership, Schultz noted.
"It cost me $75 for an application, but they have since raised that to $100," she said, "It costs $29 a year, or $400 for a life membership."
All that climbing around on the branches of her family tree gave Schultz an interest in history.
"I'm not a history buff but my husband David is, and now it's drawing me in," Schultz said.
"He deserves credit for this because he did 99 percent of the work."
She said she her lineage to Brewster reaches back 12 generations through her paternal grandmother, who unsuccessfully tried to become a member of the Mayflower Society many decades ago.
"They tried before, in 1918, but it was much harder then (to search records) and she just gave up," Schultz said.
"We were happy for her — we felt we had done this for her too."
In going back through the generations, Schultz discovered her great-great-great-grandfather's grave in Bar Harbor, Maine, last year.
"He was a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War, and we found his tombstone," Schultz said. "Cape Levi in Maine is named for him."
At that time, Dave Schultz said, Maine was a part of the original Massachusetts Colony, and Higgins' family was one of the first few families to settle in the Bar Harbor area.
Given all that early American family history, Becky Schultz is a relative newcomer to this state.
She said her family moved from New England to Iowa several generations ago, then came to Rochester, Mich., when her father got a job with General Motors.
Both she and Dave are retired and have lived in Chelsea for 10 years.
One daughter lives in Indiana and the other lives near Baltimore, and they have two grandchildren.
Fortunately for them, family members may also be Society members; they only have to prove their lineage to the relative who has been accepted into the society.
"All the hard work has been done already" to prove their lineage to the Society, Schultz said.
And, as if tracing 12 generations into the past wasn't enough, Schultz said she is close to establishing her kinship to yet another Mayflower passenger and signer of the compact.
"I'm also working on proving my connection to Thomas Rogers, which goes back 11 generations," Schultz said.
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