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I was hoping after last week’s devastating revelation that I could improve the Rudd
family morale by verifying the myth that we are descendants of the Mayflower pilgrims.
Like the Uncle
Sam rumor, this one has been purported by my mother’s family, so instead of blindly
trusting the research (see below), I set about to prove it on my own.

I began optimistically after reading an About.com
article that said, “It has been estimated by Gary Boyd Roberts, of the New England
Historic Genealogical Society, that there are some 30 million descendants of the Mayflower
families.” With 30 million descendants, my chances were looking good!

I started by tracing back through Hazel Silverberg, my great-grandmother. Using Ancestry.com,
I traced her grandparents, Charles Russell Hall (b. 1853, New York) and Alice Roberts
(b. 1865).

My alleged Mayflower link is through Charles Russell Hall’s mother, Anne Green Soule
(b. 1826, married to Russell W. Hall). I immediately questioned Anne’s two last names,
Green and Soule, especially as her mother’s last name is reportedly Cady. Where did
“Green” come from? Did she have a previous marriage? If women were remarried after
being widowed or divorced, did they keep their name?

On this page of research (date: 12/10/89), Anne Green Soule has a * next to her name,
and written below: “is already verified by some other researcher. They let me see
it, but it’s against the rules.” Um, what?

It also says, at the bottom, “Anne Green’s birth and death must be confirmed somehow
and then we can be official Mayflower descendants.”

So it would seem—to my astonishment—that there is no actual evidence that we are Mayflower
descendants. Great.

My online search of records for Anne Green Soule and Russell W. Hall was fruitless.
All I uncovered was an 1860 Census record that listed Russell Hall and Anna Hall (b.
1827, NY)—no mention of Green or Soule. At this point I changed my strategy. Knowing
of the abundant literature on Mayflower genealogy, I started Google-ing.

I confirmed my relative’s research from the Mayflower pilgrim (George Soule) to Coomer
Soule, Anne Green Soule’s alleged father.

I hit a roadblock when—in the
only Mayflower family tree I found that listed Coomer Soule’s children—they were
listed:

i. JOSEPH CADY SOULE, b. 27 Jan 1805; m. JULIA KEACH.
ii. LUCY SOULE, b. 11 Aug 1808, Woodstock, Windham County, Connecticut; m. NATHAN
BROWN.
iii. EMILY SOULE, b. Abt. 1811
iv. ELIZABETH SOULE, b. 22 Mar 1815; m. LYMAN HAWKS.

Well… where’s Anne? And it doesn’t look like any of those daughters married a “Hall.”

I needed help, so I started digging around Ancestry.com’s message boards when I stumbled
upon this posting from January 3, 2000:

“Looking for the daughter of Coomer Soule and Nancy Cady who is believe to have married
Russell Ephraim Hall, Children William Coomer Hall b. 12/8/1857, m. 12/25/1891 Hattie
Alma Cone in Hartford, Windsor Co, VT. William d. 12/29/1938.”

This (nameless) poster seems to share my dilemma. He (or she) is implying that there
was a daughter who married a Russell Hall. This couldn’t just be one of my aunts though,
because William Coomer Hall is a different child than (perhaps the brother?) my Charles
Russell Hall.

Unfortunately, my luck stopped there. None of the responses had valuable information.
Help me out, Genealogy Insiders! Where should I go from here?

(My mom’s abandoned Mayflower Society application from 2002).