--- title: "ICYMI: Mayflower trolls" description: nternet trolls are people who lurk on social media and generally cause trouble for everybody else. I recently found a list of the ten types of internet trolls, and suspect I probably qualify under No. image: https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Alicia-Crane-Williams-Apr-21-2023-05-25-40-4736-PM.jpg --- # [Vita Brevis A resource for family history from AmericanAncestors.org](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. # ICYMI: Mayflower trolls [July 20, 2020](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2020/07/icymi-mayflower-trolls) [Critical Analysis](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/critical-analysis), [Genealogical Writing](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/genealogical-writing), [American History](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/american-history), [Smack Down!](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/smack-down), [Mayflower 2020](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/mayflower-2020), [Spotlight](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/spotlight), [The Well-Stocked Genealogical Library](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/the-well-stocked-genealogical-library), [Family stories](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/family-stories) [Alicia Crane Williams](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/acwilliams) [**Editor's note**: *This post originally appeared in* Vita Brevis *on 20 January 2020*.] [![](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Alicia-Crane-Williams-Apr-21-2023-05-25-40-4736-PM.jpg?width=200&height=260&name=Alicia-Crane-Williams-Apr-21-2023-05-25-40-4736-PM.jpg)](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Alicia-Crane-Williams-Apr-21-2023-05-25-40-4736-PM.jpg)Internet trolls are people who lurk on social media and generally cause trouble for everybody else. I recently found a list of the[ ten types of internet trolls](https://www.lifewire.com/types-of-internet-trolls-3485894), and suspect I probably qualify under No. 5, “The Show-Off, Know-it-All Or Blabbermouth Troll.” Or at least that is how I feel whenever I chime in on one of the *Mayflower*/Alden-related Facebook pages or the like. It becomes my job to deflate the balloons of some of these wonderful newly-found *Mayflower* descendants, who have, most unfortunately, inadvertently gathered and believed all the dross of Internet information about their ancestors. I do feel bad about it, which is why I don’t post very often. It is discouraging when one must post the same things over and over and over and over, and it is amazing how many people resist facts once they have found an interesting old story. Even when I steer newbies to a legitimate website, such as Caleb Johnson’s *MayflowerHistory.com,* I get the feeling not many of them care to make the effort to look at it. All of this is important now, of course, with the 2020 celebrations of the four hundredth anniversary of the coming of the *Mayflower* and her Pilgrims. It got me to thinking that what we really need is a *Mayflower* clearing house website that would post all the correct information in one spot! ### Two thousand twenty also marks sixty years since the inception of the *Five Generations Project* (now the *Silver Books* project) in 1960. That would be nice, but right now the Mayflower Society has plenty on its hands with hundreds of new inquiries and applications. Anyway, it is not as though they haven’t been doing *anything*. Two thousand twenty also marks sixty years since the inception of the *Five Generations Project* (now the *Silver Books* project) in 1960. The idea then was to create documented works to help people apply for membership in the lineage society. The estimate for documenting and publishing five generations of *Mayflower* descendants in “short” little sketches for every family was something like, oh, five years. Yeah, right. In these sixty years the General Society of Mayflower Descendants has published in one form or another – silver books, pink pamphlets, etc. – what must be close to 100 different editions and revisions, some now extending into the sixth and seventh generations, all with the intention of “getting it right.” If one wishes to make the effort, one should be able to find in a library or [buy a book](https://www.themayflowersociety.org/shop/books-publications/silver-books-and-mfip) with vetted information about the early generations of every *Mayflower* family. Even better, now we have access to [indexed images of the fifth-generation “Silver Books”](https://www.americanancestors.org/search/databasesearch/2728/mayflower-families-fifth-generation-descendants-1700-1880) on AmericanAncestors.org. That is all well and good, and we eagerly look forward to the day when online images of the entire series of books are available, but it doesn’t solve my problem today. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could direct people to a website where they could find, with one push of a button, the reasons why they should *not* believe in such things as the imaginary “Molyneaux” ancestry of the Mullins family, or the invented royal ancestry of Richard Warren, or that John and Priscilla Alden had a son named Zachariah? Maybe I’ll put it on the Christmas 2020 wish list. ### Share this: - [mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2020/07/icymi-mayflower-trolls](mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2020/07/icymi-mayflower-trolls) - - - More - - ![Alicia Crane Williams](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Williams_Alicia.jpg) ## About Alicia Crane Williams Alicia Crane Williams, FASG, Lead Genealogist of Early Families of New England Study Project, has compiled and edited numerous important genealogical publications including The Mayflower Descendant and the Alden Family “Silver Book” Five Generations project of the Mayflower Society. Most recently, she is the author of the 2017 edition of The Babson Genealogy, 1606-2017, Descendants of Thomas and Isabel Babson who first arrived in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1637. Alicia has served as Historian of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, Assistant Historian General at the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, and as Genealogist of the Alden Kindred of America. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree in History from Northeastern University.[View all posts by Alicia Crane Williams →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/acwilliams) [← Presidential surnames](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2020/07/presidential-surnames) [Family friends →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2020/07/family-friends) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. ### Recent Posts [Sailor Bill and His Forgotten Wife](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/sailor-bill-and-his-forgotten-wife) [Professor X](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/professor-x) [Part I: Malaga Island, Maine](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/part-i-malaga-island-maine) [The Norwegian folge](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/the-norwegian-folge) [Research…in a Miniskirt? 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