Died on This Date: Mayflower Ancestor Francis Cooke

By William Halsall - Pilgrim Hall Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=308115

My husband is a descendant of Mayflower ancestors Isaac Allerton, his wife Mary Norris Allerton, their daughter Mary Allerton, and Degory Priest.

Through the detailed research of the Wood cousin who's been doing genealogy for more than three decades, we are now getting acquainted with a fifth Mayflower ancestor, Francis Cooke. Little by little, I'm reviewing the names/dates of the begats and adding all the intermediate ancestor links to the Wood family tree.

Francis Cooke died in Plymouth colony 356 years ago today. William Bradford reportedly wrote a decade before Cooke's death: "Francis Cooke is still living, a very old man, and hath seen his children's children have children." By one estimate, Cooke was about 80 when he died on April 7, 1663.

Listing of Begats

Francis married Hester Mahieu in the early 1600s. He and an older son sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, while she and their younger children sailed on the Anne in 1623. Their youngest child, Mary Cooke, was born in Plymouth. She is my husband's ancestor, according to these begats:

Mary Cooke married John Thomson (or Tomson/Thompson). Their daughter Mary Thomson was the second wife of Thomas B. Taber. Their son Joseph Taber married Elizabeth Spooner. Their son William Taber married Mary Wing. Their son Nicholas Taber married Desire Vincent. Their daughter Harriet Taber married Isaiah Wood Sr. Their son Thomas Haskell Wood is my husband's great-granddaddy!

So if my fingers and toes have counted correctly, Francis Cooke is my husband's 8th great-granddaddy.

The Francis Cooke Society keeps his memory alive and helps descendants prove their Mayflower connection to him.

Sentimental Sunday: Mayflower Day

Thanks to Heather Wilkinson Rojo for pointing out that today is Mayflower Day, the day in 1620 when the Mayflower sailed away from Plymouth, England to the New World.

Hubby had five ancestors on the Mayflower:

• Degory Priest (whose line led through the Coombs family to Sarah Hatch, who married James Cushman; their granddaughter Lydia was the mother of Harriet Taber, who married Isaiah Wood Sr. in Massachusetts in 1806. Harriet and Isaiah were hubby's g-g-grandparents).
• Isaac Allerton, Mary Norris, and Mary Allerton (Mary Allerton Cushman's son Eleazer Cushman married Elizabeth Royal Coombs, g-grandaughter of Degory Priest, linking these ancestors to the family tree of Degory Priest).
• Francis Cooke