dumb question: Where did the original new england pilgrims go

[JohnKleeb]

and what religion are they now
I am just wondering because Ive been curious and I know that New England has a strong Catholic population, I know why about that, the Irish and Italians among others. I am just wondering.

[arcane1]

1. I think they moved on to doing witch trials...

and from there, the Justice Department

:evilgrin:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

2. The Mayflower folks?

The Mayflower still figures prominently in parts of New England. A whole bunch of folks trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower, and it entitles you to be in the Social Register. Most old Yankees are Congregational, but I think you'll now find that a lot of the Mayflower descendents are Episcopalian or Catholic (through intermarriage).

[DODI]

3. I am catholic and live in CT

My family went from MA,to CT, NY, Indiana and all points west. Our family has been in all the dominations at one time or another.

[Snow]

4. The original Puritan religion

is now Congregational, one of the more liberal mainstream religions. Bit of irony. And the descendants, as has been observed, are still around.

[midnight armadillo]

5. Hordes of ancestors

There are hundreds of thousands of ancestors by now...most don't bother with the register :-)

[Rowdyboy]

6. Mine stayed in Massachusetts...

for around a hundred years before one married into a southern family and moved to Virginia and from there to Mississippi in the early 1800's.

One of my colonial ancestors had his right to vote taken away for excessive drunkenness!

[JohnKleeb]

7. You are descedant?

Then I must be a n00b compared to people like you.

[Rowdyboy]

11. Yeah, my cousin traced part of our family back...

to the 1500's when they were Hugonauts (Protestants)in Catholic France. Emigrated to Ireland and later to Holland, after intermarrying into one of the pilgrim families. Its really fun to read the names some of them had...

[JohnKleeb]

12. very interesting

I on my Irish side come from Galway. Now on my German side I would say anywhere in south being that I am Catholic and been told I am Swiss German. Where in Slovakia and Slovenia I havent got a clue. So I am a newbie to the US to people like you btw you are so far away from the dock lol sorry its a expression me and a friend use. She just arrived basically and I can still see it lol. Its a methaphor.

[skip fox]

8. Hence, your name!

:toast:

[arcane1]

10. same here, left MA and off to VA

and now in CA :-)

[SoCalDem]

9. My guess would be that they spread out over America

as it grew, and when the waves of immigrants started to come to America, the new people did not have the funds to go very far, so they stayed put.. Their numbers may have tipped the balance, since the original folks had already dispersed.. Just a guess:)

edit to add..

The early waves of immigrants were from predominantly catholic countries, so it would not be surprising to have large groups of catholics clustered there :)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. The Puritans evolved in two directions

The mainstream became the Congregational Church, which eventually merged with another denomination to form the United Churches of Christ, or UCCs, nowadays one of the more liberal denominations.

During the eighteenth century, the more liberal Congregationalists became Unitarians (believing that Jesus was not the son of God and that there is no Holy Spirit) or Universalists (everyone goes to heaven). About twenty(?) years ago, the Unitarians and Universalists merged to form the Unitarian-Universalist Church, or UUs.

By the way, the Pilgrims and the Puritans had very similar lifestyles and beliefs, but they differed in one respect. The Puritans wanted to "purify" the Church of England and make it more rigid. The Pilgrims were actually Separatists, who believed that the Church of England would never be "purified," so that it was better to withdraw. The only trouble was that this was the era in which all subjects of a monarch were expected to follow the same religion as the monarch. England got jerked back and forth between Church of England (known as Episcopalians in the U.S.), Calvinism (Presbyterian), and Roman Catholicism during the sixteenth century.

So the Pilgrims left England to avoid the state church and first went to the Netherlands, which had freedom of religion. However, they wanted to remain English and didn't like the fact that their children were assimilating into Dutch society, so they up and went to the colonies in 1620.

[Kat45]

14. I belong to a Congregational church in Massachusetts,

and I was surprised when I found out that the denomination went back to the Pilgrims, because I always think of the Puritans when I think of them. And my church is the most liberal mainstream Protestant denomination; I absolutely love it. It's also a church where the congregation, ie the people who are members, is in charge of the church, which makes for an egalitarian institution.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

15. The main difference between Pilgrims and Puritans

Puritans were not separatists, and just sought to reform the Church of England. Pilgrims were separatists and disagreed with the Church and king.

[JohnKleeb]

16. I always thought they were the same

:) what a dummy I am but this isnt my special field of history.

[grasswire]

17. I'm a Mayflower descendent...

...which is not a bragging statement, since I did nothing to qualify for the status and it doesn't earn me even a cup of coffee.

My family line descends from John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley (he was Carver's manservant, she was just a girl and orphaned in the first winter). They didn't stray far from the landing points and are buried not far from Plimoth.

It's really interesting that the bearer of every surname in my family tree arrived in the New World in the 1600s. Whether it was my father's ancestor or my mother's, they all lived in Massachusetts or Connecticut for at least several generations. Often they lived just miles from each other. My mother's family didn't leave Connecticut until 1924 for the West. My grandparents were members of the Congregational church. Many of my ancestors in the 1700s were parsons including my favorite who graduated Yale in 1748 and was quite a local patriot. He was in the pulpit when the news came of Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, and he led his congregation in three silent hip-hip-hoorays (because to cheer in church would have been disrespectful).

Ah, if I only had the land my ancestors had owned along the Connecticut River........(sigh)

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

18. don't worry

I just learned that. I thought they were the same too, lol :D

[brook]

19. On my Father's side...

my ancestors arrived in New England about 1620. The son of one fairly prominent man married the daughter of another. (Tupper & Mayhew). The Tupper branch from whom I directly descend, went to Nova Scotia. Family lore is that they were Loyalists - however, I don't know how true that is. There were wonderful farms made available to them when the French were purged - and they may have gone for economic reasons. Other Mayhews and Tuppers stayed in MA. Jonathan Mayhew was a formentor of the Revolution and the minister of the West Church - in Boston. Thomas Mayhew, the owner & Govenor of Martha's Vineyard & the Elizabeth Islands was my g-grandfatherx12 - and he was paid to minister to the local Indian population by England. If I recall, they evolved from Congregationalist to Unitarians, etc. My point being - that then, as now, people change. And I have been told that religious freedom was a major factor (along with economic opportunity) in their immigration to the Colonies. I often wish I could have known just what they did think and what their lves really were like.

[grasswire]

20. well..

...have you been to Plimoth Plantation? That's a pretty good way to feel close to the life of the early settlers.

And if you read some of the materials at web sites such as the Mayflower home page, you'll catch some of the ambiance, too.

http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/

One branch of my family tree were loyalists, too, and fled to Canada. Generations later, after emigrating to the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., my father (whose ancestors fled from Connecticut at the end of the Revolution) married my mother (whose ancestors had lived just six miles away in Connecticut at the time of the Revolution).

[brook]

21. Gee...

my Tuppers left Ct. for Canada too. Three generations later, my gx4 Grandfather returned to Cambridge, Ma. My Tupper grandmother was born in Boston.

No, I haven't been to Plimoth Plantation - but I have done a bit of reading. Thank you for the link!

[grasswire]

22. I should have...

..included a link for Plimoth Plantation. They employ a staff member to represent each Pilgrim going about daily life in the recreated village, and those actors speak only in terms contemporaneous with Pilgrim life. I entered a house where several women were working cooking and asked where I might find Elizabeth Tilley Howland (my ancestor) and they talked about her as her real neighbors might have done. It was kind of spooky, but a great experience.

http://www.plimoth.org

[noonwitch]

23. I'm a descendant of Richard Warren

The family spread out-he had lots of daughters. My branch hails from the Niagra Falls area of New York. The Roosevelts also descended from Richard Warren, and they're from the Hudson Valley.

The church founded by the pilgrims is now the United Church of Christ, the most liberal church that can be called christian (Unity and UU are not really christian, they're more of a spiritual tradition with some roots in christianity, but inclusive of all). They were the Congregational Church and some of those churches never joined the UCC.