THE APPROACHING EXTINCTION OF 

 THE MAYFLOWER DESCENDANTS 



We Are Soon to Celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 



If Their Present Birth Rate Continues for Another 300 Years, 



It Will Be Possible to Put All the Surviving Descendants 



Back Again Into the Mayflower, and 



No Overcrowding 



S. j. H()I,MES AND C". M. Doll) 



Uni^'crsity of California, Berkeley, Cal. 



Tl I Iv (lata upon which this paper 

 is based were obtained partl\ 

 from a biographical study of 

 Mayflower families, and partly 

 from the results of a questionnaire 

 sent to the members of the California 

 l)ranch of the Society of Mayflower 

 Descendants. We are indebted to Mr. 

 Herbert Folger. the historian of the 

 California branch of this society, for a 

 list of the names and addresses of mem- 

 bers and for his kindly interest in our 

 work. We wish also to thank the nu- 

 merous Mayflower descendants who 

 have taken the trouble to answer the 

 questionnaire sent to them. 



The questionnaires were furnished 

 with spaces for filling in the desired 

 data, which included the ages of hus- 

 band and wife, date of marriage, num- 

 ber of children, including those still- 

 born, tlu- number of children in llie 

 family of the father and mother of 

 the Mayflower descendants, and a query 

 concerning what may have seemed to 

 many a mere matter of idle curiosity — 

 the religion of both husband and wife. 

 Data were also recjuested concerning 

 the dates of marriage and number of 

 children of any descendants of the 

 present members. 



The statement of religious afliliation 

 was requested with a view of ascer- 

 taining what correlation might exist be- 

 tween the religious belief of j^arents and 

 296 



the size of their family. Families are 

 unusually large in certain sects, such 

 as Catholics and Jews, but our data 

 were not sufficient to enable us to draw 

 any conclusion as to the correlation 

 between religion and fecundity in the 

 group of people investigated. 



Of the 241 questionnaires sent out. 

 116 were returned, but 10 of these were 

 imperfectly filled out, so that they could 

 not be used. Records were obtained 

 sufficiently complete for our purpose 

 from 106 families. It is hardly probable 

 that incompleteness of returns would 

 introduce any c|ualitative ditTerences of 

 importance in the data. Those having 

 no children might be somewhat less 

 apt to fill out and return the blanks; if 

 so, the reduction in the size of the 

 family would be somewhat greater than 

 our records indicate. 



We have grouped families according 

 to the date of the l)irth of the parents. 

 INlost of our data concerns individuals 

 born in the two 20-vear intervals, 1840- 

 1860 and 1860-1880. There are fewer 

 records of the families of individuals 

 born between 1820 and 1840, but these 

 show a considerably higher birth rate 

 than the families belonging to subse- 

 (|uent decades. The families of individ- 

 uals born after 1880 cannot be consid- 

 ered complete, since more children may 

 be born in them. Parents, both of whom 

 were born between 1860 and 1880. may. 

 in rare cases, jiroduce more children. 



