Joan Hurst b. 1568

/ Kirstin Miller

Joan Hurst 11th great grandma on RootsMagic tree.

Joan Hurst was baptized March 13, 1568 at St Mary’s Parish in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England. Her first husband was Thomas Rogers who died around 1595. Her 2nd husband was John Tilley. They married September 20, 1596 in the same St Mary’s Parish. They had 5 children, Elizabeth Tilley was the youngest she was baptized in the same church as her mom. In 1620 Joan 52, John 48 and Elizabeth 13 were on the Mayflower and in America by November. Joan’s husband John was in the exploring party on December 6 noted for the first contact with American Indians. By January 1621 the exploring parties found a location to set up their colony, an abandoned Wampanoag village. The men built shelters, with each man responsible for his own family, ‘by that course men would make more haste than working in common’. In February this group had homes, food and water sources and supplies unpacked form the Mayflower.

Tilley, John 1620 Mayflower exploring party

1620 Mayflower exploring party

By March the number of passengers and crew, was down from 102 to 47 souls. In Bradford’s History. “Of these hundred persons which came first over in this first ship together, the greater half died in the general mortality, and most of them in two or three months’ time.”

Joan Hurst, her husband John Tilley, John’s brother Edward Tilley and Ann, his wife, they died the first winter and were buried in Coles Hill Burial Ground. Joan and John’s daughter Elizabeth was left an orphan and eventually married another passenger John Howland. Elizabeth and John had 10 kids who all survived so today this couple has more than 2 million Mayflower diverse descendants. I’m working on getting this Mayflower connection officially verified, the 400th anniversary was November 2020, greatly hampered by the global pandemic.

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