History that really feels personal

This is likely not interesting to most people, but it is intensely interesting to us! So I wanted to make sure we documented it on our family blog.

Our family has spent the past several hours researching our family history.
We found out some fun stuff.
Steve's line had an ancestor that was living in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials. She made it through just fine.
My line I was able to see back to ancestors who were born in the year 1000 or closely to. That was pretty cool!
We got sidetracked deciding to find out if we had an ancestor that came over on the Mayflower. (There were only 102 passengers I believe.)
We found 36 direct line ancestors (possibly more as we only looked on my father's father's side of the family,) who lived in Plymouth Mass., when it was just getting started. I wish I had known this when Steve and I were there last year!

We also learned that my Dad's Dad's Dad's Mother's Dad's Mother's Mother's Father's Father's Father's Mother's Father is Francis Cooke (My 10^th Great Grandfather).
Francis Cooke was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact. (See image at top.)

They only know of 26 male Mayflower passengers to have descendants. Many died in the first year. He brought with him his 13 year old son and left his wife and younger children at home. She came with them soon thereafter. Francis was an important part of Plymouth. He served in many civil capacities. There is an article about him on Wikipedia. I found this part of the article particularly interesting; it's a quote from

William Bradford (the elected Governor of Plymouth 30 times.)
"Francis Cooke is still living, a very old man, and hath seen his children's children have children. After his wife came over with other of his children; he hath three still living by her, all married and have five children, so their increase is eight. And his son John which came over with him is married, and hath four children living."

And my children and I are part of that "increase".
Pretty cool.