First person to step on Plymouth Rock

That's a charming story!

Actually it was one of the Chilton women. I think the widow

I'm a descendant of the Chiltons, that would be cool!

I was a descendant of the Chiltons but the path has changed and it'll take me some time to figure out what happened.

I bet I know as my daughter came up as a Chilton dec. Two Leonard's either married two Chilton girls or some one maybe mistaken. I see that the connection to Chilton for my daughter was broken. It is a cool Mystery as to who was the Sarah that Moses married was she a Chilton or not.

Do you have someplace to send the news article if I can find it again?

Maybe you can find it I was searching John Alden and it was a story of the reenactment(?) of the landing of the Mayflower that was very serious about getting details correct.

Oh and you are looking for a very old article
If that helps

I remember that Chilton and Chandler became my ancestors through my Snow - Williams marriage, when I connected my nth great grandmother Snow to Ebenezer Snow as his daughter. So there used to be a path from Snow to Chilton.

Ebenezer Snow

His daughter Mary married a Williams. My mother is Ann Browning Williams (maiden name), a direct descendant of Richard Williams and Francis Deighton of Taunton.

I still haven't figured out how Chilton / Chandler were connected. I remember that with the Snow connection, I picked up Alden and Mullins and Peter Browne.

Or you can have it both ways:

. "Sarah Chandler - was born on 16 Oct 1622 in Leyden, Holland and died on 15 Aug 1658 in Boston, Ma . She was the daughter of Roger Chandler and Isabella Chilton.
Sarah married John Solomon Leonard in 1640. John was born in 1609/1610 in (prob) Monmouthshire, England. He was the son of Samuel Leonard. He died on 1 May 1671 in Bridgewater. Plymouth, MA .
Then Sarah married Moses Simmons in 1632/1637 in Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands. Moses was born on 1 Jan 1604, lived in Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands. He died on 15 Sep 1691 in Duxbury, Plymouth, MA .

Sarah - (some sources show her name as Sarah, some as Mary)
Children with John Solomon Leonard
See Leonard family for children.

Children with Moses Simmons
See Simmons family for children. "

I think it is funny that she married Leonard in 1640 THEN she married Simmons in 1632 -37

How can she have re-married when she died before her first husband?!

I was just working on this line because a branch of my Johnson family used the given name Chandler, apparently due to the Leonard - Chandler ancestors.

Sarah Leonard Obviously the details are incorrect, so it's a work in progress.

Love works in progress. When someone is referred to as " Mary" could it be for Phoebe? I ask this because it has popped up in two different places now. Or is more likely that "Mary" is a nickname for Sarah?

Phoebe Mary is a fairly common current name combination; Sarah Mary is not so common as Mary Sarah. But at that time? Unless it was a 'family tradition', it was not so common to have two names. I would not assume Mary is a nickname for either without reasonable evidence.

Apparently for some reason that is unclear to me but "known to be so" by Colonial genealogists, sometimes Mary & Sarah were used interchangeably to refer to the same person.

There were no middle names until around 1700. I ran across an annotation in the Narranganset register for I think 1670s - "surely the first documented use of a middle name in New England."

I do have an ancestress whose name was, not kidding

Thanks be to the Lord

Nicknamed "Thankful".

For years they thought her surname was Lord, but it was really part of her given name.

Boy what a name to live up to. Did I see her on the Alden tree somewhere under Thankfull?

No, she's not in the Alden "stream." She was an early arriver to the original Charles-towne (now Cambridge) Massachusetts.

"Thankslord Shepard was famous for having signed a petition to the General Court in 1651, along with other highly educated women of Malden, supporting their minister. Her signature on this petition can be found online. Women rarely appeared in government records for that time, certainly not in a petition that would seem to be critical of the Court's actions, so those who signed it are still noted in history."

That signature also caused the genealogical confusion ...

Thankslord “Thanks” Shepard

NEGHS has good information re Mary / Sarah Chandler.

Solomon Leonard(son) of Duxbury and Bridgewater married Mary Chandler, dau. of Roger Chandler. Their son was Samuel Leonard.

It appears from the first article (Vol 27 The American Genealogist 1951) that I read that there was a Sarah and a Mary, but I'll wait until I've read the second article (Vol. 37 TAG) and looked through The Great Migration Begins, which I own in hard copy. Also The Pilgrim Migration and The Winthrop Fleet, which I also own.

Very Cool!! I found not the article I was looking for another called "The Real John Alden was A Regular Statesman" Louisville Courier Journal with lots of great stuff about how he helped with political offices and advised.

"In harmony with his quick decision to ship on the Mayflower is the fact that he was the first to plant his foot on Plymouth Rock, though some say he gallantly Stood aside to let Mary Chilton have her heart's desire."

This is my favorite image:
http://www.granger.com/results.asp?image=0038920&stockindexonli...
Without a doubt Mary Chilton was the first woman to step on Plymouth Rock and was probably the first person with two feet on the rock.