Tracing Famous ‘Mayflower’ Passenger Peregrine White’s Family Tree

Newspapers tell the story of the everyday lives of our ancestors. From articles about famous Mayflower descendants to more mundane, daily news, use newspapers to uncover unknown stories and facts about your ancestry. We used GenealogyBank’s extensive collection of newspapers spanning nearly 400 years of American history to trace the family tree of Peregrine White – the first Pilgrim born in the U.S! 

The historical newspaper article in the upper right is an obituary of Peregrine White, “the First Englishman born in New England.” He was born on board the Mayflower in the Cape Cod Harbor in November 1620! Peregrine White’s obituary appeared in the Boston News-Letter (Boston, Massachusetts), 24 July-31 July 1704, page 2. The newspaper article below it is about a family reunion, including four generations of Peregrine White descendants, who gathered in McMinnville, Oregon. This family reunion newspaper article was published in the Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), 30 May 1915, Section 3, page 9.

Peregrine White’s descendants were understandably proud to have such a famous ancestor, Mayflower ship passenger and the first Pilgrim born in New England, in their family tree. They could be considered famous Mayflower descendants. This past summer, when Mary Alice (Haskell) Morey (1928-2011) died, her obituary prominently mentioned that she was a direct descendant of Peregrine White.Her obituary was printed by the Natick Bulletin & TAB (Natick, Massachusetts), 22 July 2011, page 18. Read her complete obituary in GenealogyBank.