The long-awaited update to the Cooke silver book is out and you may purchase it (only) from the GSMD at this link: https://www.themayflowersociety.org/shop/books-publications/silver-books-and-mfip/francis-cooke-voln12n2008neditionnnnn.html or you can go to their main page and click on "shop" at the top right. It does add children here or there (i.e., adding lines) and promotes some children from "possible" to "probable" but demotes a few others. The surnames affected include: Cooke, Washburn, Hathaway, Taber, Swift, Allen, Sturtevant, Howland, Johnson, West, Mosher, Sherman, Wilcox, Mott, Hayward, Bozworth, Packard, Reed, Bartlett, Mitchell, and Rickard. I was disappointed, personally. I have only seen the 9-page Addendum with all the changes put together, but it did not fix the issue with my own line. Peter Taber's wife was Sarah Jernigan, not "perhaps Jenkins." There is a marriage record and a deed that show this but apparently no one else joined on this line or did a supplemental and pointed this out. On the bright side, it does fix his daughter's name (Jedidah, not Jedediah) and specified her husband. The price for an updated Cooke volume with the new information is $65.

This week's NEHGS online member newsletter has a link to an article of interest to Mayflower descendants curious about what their ancestors looked like. Nearly all of our people were from England and the story is about a facial reconstruction project going on about 50 miles from London. Gizmodo ran the article; it has only the one image but mentions the groups doing the work: the University of Dundee's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification and Cambridge University's Division of Archaeology, using money from the Wellcome Trust for a project called "After the Plague: Health and History in Medieval Cambridge." The specific medieval folk they are studying are those buried in the cemetery of a charitable hospital. Who knows; some of our ancestors might be among the faces they reconstruct. Check it out!

If you live in Arizona and are a member, an applicant, or just thinking about joining because a family member told you how much fun they are having with their own state Society, consider coming to the annual meeting April 23rd in Tempe, AZ. Details & a reservation form are now available on the website, arizonamayflowersociety.org. Maybe you have thought about it in the past and decided you would go to one of the Compact Day events right before Thanksgiving, to partake of that First Thanksgiving ambience. However, the spring meeting is the one at which attendees do NOT have to eat a big turkey dinner. Having to consume a traditional Thanksgiving meal 4 days before having to cook and eat one yourself (maybe several if you have relatives close by) gets old. The fall meeting is also more crowded. Friendly, but crowded. Reservations are due April 17 and that is a firm deadline so don't delay.

I haven't found a link yet between St. Patrick and the Mayflower, and none of the pilgrims is known to be Irish, although the Standish family had links to the Isle of Man, which is kinda sorta close. However, if you are "Green" - pun intended, and meaning a member of the Green or Greene family, come check out your links to the Aldens, Mullinses, Howlands, Tilleys, and Warrens. Click on the Descendant Index, D - I, to find the Green entries. Erin go bragh!

Please welcome Olive (Pool/Poole) Reed of Massachusetts to our pages as the 200th descendant of John Alden, Priscilla Mullins, and William Mullins. Olive is also a Samson and Standish descendant so you can see her daguerrotype there as well.