HEREAS, the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company and their elected Governor, John Winthrop, emigrated to New England in 1630 to found a “City on a Hill,” the Winthrop Society: Descendants of the Great Migration is dedicated to honoring and preserving their memory, philosophy and tradition, and transmitting their example
of courage, faith, civic duty and integrity."
— excerpt from the Winthrop
Society Charter
These
first settlers, numbering scarcely one thousand, hailed mainly from
the English counties of Suffolk, Essex and Dorset. Although of comfortable
estate in England, they abandoned their homes and farms, and made a
perilous Atlantic passage to settle in an unknown wilderness. They were
spurred on by a compelling need to pursue their religion free from the
persecution of the Crown-Church of England. About one-third perished
during or soon after their voyage, and may be considered peace-loving
Christian martyrs for their faith.
The survivors established
township democracies that thrived for two centuries, and were the basis
of our American ideal of democratic government.
The Winthrop Society
means to document the lives and family histories of all these first
settlers and their descendants to the fourth generation (to about
the year 1700). Our scope of study is the Massachusetts Bay Colony,
and not the Plymouth Colony: kindred spirits already ably handled
by The Society of Mayflower Descendants and others.
The Winthrop Society
is open to all men and women of good character and proven descent from
one or more passengers of the Winthrop fleet, or of others who settled
in the Bay Colony and down east before 1634. Please
visit our Members page to find out more about our members, officers,
and trustees; how to apply for membership; and what benefits a Winthrop
Society membership entails.
The Winthrop Society
is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to historical and genealogical
research and the dissemination of educational material. The Society
is philosophically aligned with the old unalloyed Congregational Church
and the Liberties of New Englishmen, but
is not connected with any modern denomination or political group.
Our goals
are:
- To identify
all these settlers (no complete list of them survives), by consulting
every source which can be found in the US, Canada and England.
- To make a bibliography
listing all useful books and resources on the history of the the Colony
to about the year 1691, and on the early history of Puritanism in
England. As means permit, a library will be collected.
- To locate the
origins and family histories in England of all the colonists as well
as can be identified.
- To make a genealogical
database including all the descendants of these colonists to the fourth
generation, the reconstructed biographies and ancestries of the colonists
as well as can be established, plus the lineages to the present day
as submitted to us by the membership.
- To publish our
research findings and historical articles at our Web site, and in
the Winthrop Society Quarterly. Articles submitted by members and
other readers are welcomed.
The Winthrop Society
is a member of the Federation
of Genealogical Societies. Winthrop Society members may take advantage
of their many resources, services, connections, and meetings.
