The Ancestors of My Grandchildren

THOMAS ROGERS, b. abt. 1587, d. Plymouth, Mass., Feb. 1621, m. abt. 1606. He was a “Camlet” merchant in London and Leyden, Holland. His place in London seems to have been in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great where he was a taxpayer, together with Christopher Martin, Governor of the Mayflower, and John Hooke.
     He early became interested in the Pilgrim movement, and was a member of the Leyden, Holland, Congregation on or before June 25, 1618. He seems to have been fably well off. In order to finance his trip on the Mayflower he sold his house on Barbara Lane in Leyden Apr. 1, 1620, to a party by the name of Mordecai Cohen for 300 gilders.
     Thomas Rogers may be related to George Rogers, Student at Leyden University who lived with Thomas Blossom. George Rogers matriculated in Medicine Oct. 27, 1609, then 25 years of age.
     Accompanied by his youngest son Joseph, then about 12 years old, he crossed the ocean in the Mayflower, and became one of the signers of the famous compact. Unfortunately he died at an early age soon after landing at Plymouth in Feb., 1621, and his grave is on “Burial Hill” alongside those of his friends who died in that first winter of terrible hardship. Governor Bradford in his history of Plymouth Plantation states that the other children of Thomas Rogers came over later.
     Incidentally his neighbor in London, Mr. Christopher Martin, was a member of the Merchant Adventurers, and was appointed by them Governor of the Mayflower, and also Treasurer. There is good reason to suspect that Thomas Rogers was also a member of the Adventurers. He became a citizen of Leiden on 25 Jun 1618, guaranteed by Wm. Jepson and Roger Wilson.^7,6

"Until recently little was known concerning Thomas Rogers’ children and parentage; this did not deter authors of genealogies and family historians from publishing many fictitious accounts of this emigrant and his family, some complete with illustrious ancestry and an ever-present coat of arms. One of the most common claims is that the Pilgrim was a great-grandson of (Rev.) John Rogers who was burnt at the stake in 1555, the first casualty of the purge of the English clergy by Queen Mary I. Many Rogers emigrants to New England and Virginia share this claim of descent from the Martyr John Rogers; these pedigrees should have been dead on arrival in the light of the well-documented study of the Martyr by (Col.) Joseph L. Chester (published as long ago as 1861 as well as a useful article by Henry F. Waters, another pioneer in New England research, in 1887.) And yet the myth persists."¹