Puritan Great Migration ancestors: the families of 1620–1640
In a single decade, an estimated twenty thousand English Puritans crossed to New England — then the migration stopped almost entirely. That sharp beginning and end is what makes this the most intensively studied population in American genealogy.
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The short version
- The period
- About 1620 to 1640, ending as political change in England removed the reason to leave.
- How many came
- Roughly twenty thousand people, largely in family groups.
- Why it matters
- This small founding population is ancestral to an enormous share of Americans with colonial New England roots.
- The standard reference
- Robert Charles Anderson's Great Migration volumes, which give sourced sketches for arrivals through 1635. Later arrivals are in scope but not yet published.
A migration with a beginning, an end, and excellent records
The Great Migration was driven by religious and political pressure under Charles I, and it collapsed almost overnight when the Long Parliament convened in November 1640 and reform at home suddenly looked achievable. The Civil War that followed, from 1642, kept it stopped and pulled some settlers back across the Atlantic. Unlike migrations that trickle across a century, this one has firm boundaries — which means the population that arrived can be enumerated, studied, and in many cases reconstructed family by family.
The migrants also differed from most colonial settlement in coming as families rather than as single laborers, and in being unusually literate. They founded towns that kept records immediately, and belonged to churches that recorded membership carefully. The result is documentation of a quality that seventeenth-century research rarely offers.
For descendants, the practical consequence is scale. Twenty thousand people, multiplying over nearly four centuries, produced a very large share of Americans with deep New England ancestry — and because that founding population intermarried heavily, most people who connect to it connect many times over rather than once.
Great Migration immigrants in the catalog
Immigrants of the 1620–1640 migration with documented descendant lines.
Anne Dudley Bradstreet
1612 – 1672Winthrop Fleet 1630Crossed on the Arbella with the 1630 Winthrop Fleet and settled at Ipswich, then Andover; The Tenth Muse, printed at London in 1650, made her the first woman living in England's American colonies to publish a volume of poetry in English.
Check if Anne Dudley Bradstreet is your ancestorAnne Marbury Hutchinson
1591 – 1643Griffin 1634Sailed from Alford, Lincolnshire, and reached Boston on the Griffin in September 1634; banished for heresy in 1638, she helped settle Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and was killed in New Netherland in 1643.
Check if Anne Marbury Hutchinson is your ancestorElder John Strong
d. 1699Ship unrecordedEmigrated in the 1630s — the familiar Mary and John story is family tradition, not record, and no passenger list names him; he settled at Hingham, then Taunton and Windsor, and served Northampton as its first ruling elder until his death in 1699.
Check if John Strong is your ancestorHenry Adams of Braintree
1583 – 1646Arrived c. 1638Came from Barton St David, Somerset, about 1638 and took a Mount Wollaston grant in 1640 for a household of ten; his Braintree line produced Presidents John and John Quincy Adams.
Check if Henry Adams of Braintree is your ancestorJohn Winthrop
1588 – 1649Winthrop Fleet 1630Lord of Groton Manor in Suffolk, he sailed on the Arbella in 1630 as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, settled at Boston, and kept the journal that remains the migration's core narrative source.
Check if John Winthrop is your ancestorMary Barrett Dyer
d. 1660Arrived 1635Married in London in 1633 and arrived at Boston in 1635; exiled with the Hutchinsonians to Rhode Island, she returned as a Quaker and was hanged on Boston Common on June 1, 1660.
Check if Mary Barrett Dyer is your ancestorRoger Williams
d. 1683Lyon 1631Left London and landed at Nantasket on the Lyon on February 5, 1631; expelled from Massachusetts for his views on conscience, he founded Providence in 1636 on land bought from the Narragansett.
Check if Roger Williams is your ancestorThomas Hooker
1586 – 1647Griffin 1633Born at Marefield, Leicestershire, and silenced as a lecturer at Chelmsford, he reached Boston on the Griffin in September 1633 and led his congregation overland to found Hartford in 1636.
Check if Thomas Hooker is your ancestorJohn Eliot
1604 – 1690Lyon 1631Arrived on the Lyon in November 1631 from Widford, Hertfordshire, and preached at Roxbury for nearly sixty years; his 1663 Massachusett-language Bible was the first printed in British North America.
Check if John Eliot is your ancestorPeter Bulkeley
1583 – 1659Susan and Ellen 1635Rector of Odell, Bedfordshire, until silenced under Laud, he embarked on the Susan and Ellen at London in May 1635 and founded Concord the following year as its first minister.
Check if Peter Bulkeley is your ancestorRoger Conant
1592 – 1679Arrived 1623Baptized at East Budleigh, Devon, he reached Plymouth in 1623, a decade before the main Puritan wave, and led the old planters from Cape Ann to Naumkeag in 1626, the settlement later renamed Salem.
Check if Roger Conant is your ancestor
How to check a Great Migration line
This is the best-served period in colonial American genealogy, which raises the standard of proof rather than lowering it.
- 1
Establish the immigrant generation
Work backward until you reach the ancestor who actually crossed. That person is the target — everything before them is English research, and everything after is colonial.
- 2
Use the published sketches — and know where they stop
Anderson's Great Migration volumes give sourced sketches for immigrants arriving through 1635, built directly on primary records. If your immigrant landed in that window, check your proposed line against the sketch before doing anything else. Arrivals from 1636 to 1640 are within the project's scope but not yet published, so those lines still have to be built from town, church, and court records.
- 3
Find the English origin carefully
Identifying an immigrant's home parish is the hardest and most frequently botched step. Matching on surname alone across the Atlantic produces far more false connections than real ones.
- 4
Expect multiple connections
Because the founding population was small and intermarried, most people who descend from one Great Migration immigrant descend from several. One confirmed line usually opens up others.
Rememberkin does the mechanical part of this automatically — every line, every generation, checked at once. Run the search free.
If your line crossed before 1640
A proven line deserves better than a screenshot
When Rememberkin confirms a Great Migration immigrant, it can print the whole line — every generation since the crossing, with names, dates, and portraits.
- Every generation between you and them, documented
- The relationship named plainly — 11th-great-grandfather, not a guess
- Printed as a wall chart or bound into your family book
Questions people ask
What was the Great Migration?
The movement of an estimated twenty thousand English Puritans to New England between about 1620 and 1640, driven by religious and political pressure under Charles I. It stopped almost as abruptly as it began: when the Long Parliament convened in November 1640, reform at home looked achievable and the reason to leave evaporated. The Civil War that followed kept it stopped.
How do I know if I have Great Migration ancestors?
Trace your line back to see whether it reaches New England before about 1640. If your colonial ancestry is in Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Rhode Island in that period, you very likely descend from Great Migration immigrants — usually several of them rather than one.
Why are Great Migration records so good?
The migrants came as families, were unusually literate, founded towns that kept records from the outset, and belonged to churches that documented membership carefully. Combined with a population small enough to study exhaustively, this produces exceptional seventeenth-century documentation.
Can I trace my Great Migration ancestor back to England?
Sometimes, but it is the step where most errors happen. Identifying an immigrant's English home parish requires evidence connecting the specific individual, not just a matching surname. English parish registers are deep, so a correct identification can extend a line considerably — and an incorrect one can send it centuries in the wrong direction.
Other ancestors worth checking for
See which Great Migration families are yours
Rememberkin traces your New England lines and shows the immigrants behind them.
You’ll see each ancestor found, the relationship named, and every generation in between. Read-only — nothing in your tree is edited.