Rightfully or not, many people like to claim they have an ancestral connection to one of the families that came aboard the Mayflower.  Well, we AYERS that descend from John AYRE in New Jersey may have a rightful claim, but there is controversy about the true identity of a key individual. I’ll explain.

First some background is needed. George SOULE was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, and one of the original 102 Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower to Plymouth, Massachusetts Colony in 1620.  SOULE was among the one half of the population that survived the first winter in Plymouth and was present at the time of the “First Thanksgiving” in 1621.  About 1626 he married Mary BECKET.  Their youngest daughter, Elizabeth was born in 1645.  Unfortunately, Elizabeth had some scandalous troubles in her early life.

On 3 March 1663 Elizabeth SOULE, daughter of Mayflower passenger George Soule, and Nathaniel CHURCH, grandson of Mayflower passenger Richard WARREN, to whom she was engaged to be married, were each fined 5 pounds for fornication by the Puritan community. By late 1663, Nathaniel still had not fulfilled his promise of marriage, and on 5 October 1663 Elizabeth sued Nathaniel CHURCH for breach of promise, with betrayal, for 200 Pounds but only recovered 10 Pounds. On 2 July 1667, Elizabeth was in court again “for committing fornication for the second time,” and this time she was sentenced to suffer corporal punishment by being whipped at the post. No male partner was named in this action. If no male partner was named, she was therefore not caught in the act, as the first charge proves that the court had no problem fining and punishing both parties.  Most likely, a growing belly in her unmarried state was the evidence of fornication this second time.

By March 1668, Elizabeth SOULE has married a man named Francis WALKER based on the recorded land transaction “George SOULE to daughter Elizabeth WALKER, wife of Francis.”  Speculation is that George SOULE gave land to Francis WALKER as payment for marrying his daughter. This would also seem to reinforce the notion that Elizabeth had been expecting a child. Sometime after their marriage, Francis and Elizabeth moved to Woodbridge, New Jersey, like many others from Newbury, Massachusetts, and appear to have lived quietly there for the remainder of their lives.

Now getting to the controversy. As mentioned once before, there is a lack of records that far back in time in northern New Jersey.  As a result there is much uncertainty of exactly how many children Francis WALKER and Elizabeth SOULE had including their names and dates of birth. However, it is a known fact that a woman named Mary WALKER married John AYERS, in Woodbridge about 1688, and it is from this union that our AYERS line of descendancy is based. Some researchers strongly believe that Mary was a daughter born to Elizabeth probably around 1668, while others just as strongly believe that there is not enough evidence to support that conclusion.  The venerable Mayflower Society itself has wavered over the matter, but it currently is not convinced that Mary WALKER was Elizabeth’s daughter and thus not a Mayflower descendant from George SOULE.

So, do we descendants of John AYERS of New Jersey have a Mayflower connection?  We may never know unless new evidence is found that convinces all parties that Mary WALKER was herself a true descendant.