A California Descendant of Edward Winslow of Droitwich
By Marston Watson
The California Mayflower Society can claim only one descendant of Governor Edward Winslow of the Mayflower in its membership of about 2,200. That name is Marston Watson, and he is a 30-year-member of the Society.
I am an eighth great-grandson of Edward Winslow and a resident of Richmond, California. My children Karen (Watson) Amador and son Erik Winslow Watson, and my four grandchildren are all Winslow descendants but not yet members of the Society. My wife is Kathleen Todd Watson and a descendant of Edward’s brother John Winslow, who married Mayflower passenger Mary Chilton. Kathy is now the Governor of the California Society of Mayflower Descendants.
The English roots of my Marston family date back to about 1435 in Bastwick, Norfolk County. My ancestor Thomas Marston (d. May 1507) is a twelfth great-grandfather.
I am a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts and a resident of California since 1952. I earned my Bachelor of Science Degree in business from the University of California at Berkeley (Class of 1958). I have held leadership roles in corporate finance and business as well as several hereditary and non-profit organizations in the decades that followed my graduation.
I served six months of required active military service at the Fort Ord Army training facility near Monterey, California. I concluded my weekend military duty with an honorable discharge in 1964. I am reminded that many countries in the world no doubt are aware that Veterans Day was celebrated recently on November 11 in the United States.
I began my career in the corporate world and afterwards in association management. Years later, I decided to begin my own business in career consulting and job search seminars. I ended my business career as executive recruiter in finance and accounting in 2000.
Afterwards, I began a new phase of my post-employment as a genealogist, author and speaker. I am no stranger to writing, which began at my junior high school as a second-place winner of the school’s essay contest. It was decades later in 1981 that my first of many articles to come was published in a professional journal, as well as the San Francisco Chronicle about the same time.
My love of the “American/English” language led to eighteen-year assignments as a freelance writer and columnist with a San Francisco/Bay Area newspaper (Contra Costa Times). One of his featured articles was a story of my daughter Karen’s educational pursuit in hotel-restaurant management and her part-time experience as a hotel guest registration employee while in college.
Perhaps my interest in writing was inspired by my Winslow ancestor’s love of the Old English in his own works. Edward Winslow’s first booklet is entitled Mourt’s Relation, which was written between 1620 and 1621. There were other publications including Good Newes from New England. Both booklets likely were co-authored by Governor William Bradford of the Mayflower.
I have served as editor in several organizations. My eight-year role as Editor of the Beauséant Journal with the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem earned me the honor as Grand Editeur Emeritus. I was Editor of Dentistry Today, the California Mayflower Quarterly and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion in the United States journal, each for four years.
I was inspired to become a genealogist by my father Joseph Daly Watson, a World War II veteran, who spent a year in 1939 transcribing a handwritten document of the Watson family history on a manual typewriter. His typewritten genealogy was reproduced later when copy machines became available in the 1960s.
My love for our family history began in earnest with volume one Royal Families: Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry. This book was published in 2002 by the Genealogical Publishing Company (GPC) of Baltimore, Maryland. It is a six-generation genealogy of Massachusetts Governor Thomas Dudley, from Yardley-Hastings, co Northants. A revised edition of this family was published in 2004.
Volume two in this series on the Marbury family of Alford, co. Lincoln (six generations) was published by GPC in 2004. This was followed in 2007 with volume three by GPC of the Appleton family of Little Waldingfield, co. Suffolk (six generations). My final book of nine generations in this series was of the Lord de la Warr family (Pelham-Avery-West), which was published by GPC in 2009.
This fourth volume is particularly significant, as Anne Knollys, wife of Thomas West, 2nd Baron de la Warr, of Wherwell, co. Hampshire, was a granddaughter of Mary Boleyn. Mary’s daughter Catherine Carey’s father may well have been HM Henry VIII when she was born during his five-year relation at Court with Mary Boleyn. HM Elizabeth II and I are 12th cousins through this connection. Also, I am a 12th cousin once removed from Princess Diana Spencer as well from this Mary Boleyn lineage.
I am particularly pleased with my nine-generation book of Governor Edward Winslow that was published in 2019 by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants (Volume 25, Silver Book Series). An important section of this book includes many descendants of Edward Winslow (1714-1784) of Plymouth, Massachusetts and Halifax, Nova Scotia, a great-grandson of Governor Winslow. He was a Loyalist in the American Revolution when his home in Plymouth was confiscated. It is owned today by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and is known as the Mayflower Society House.
The story of Edward Winslow is no doubt familiar to the residents of Droitwich and Plymouth. He served three times as Plymouth Colony Governor, made several trips to England as “ambassador” and he used his wealth in support of the Colony. Edward Winslow is the only Mayflower passenger to have an oil portrait that now hangs in Plymouth. Winslow’s son Josiah Winslow, the first native-born Plymouth Colony Governor, and his wife Penelope Pelham (of royal and noble ancestry) have oil portraits in Plymouth as well.
I am not ready to lay down my “quill pen and ink” just yet, as currently I am writing another family history at age 89 (November 14). This seventh volume, which covers six generations of Henry Lea/Lee of Manchester, Massachusetts, is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Henry Lee immigrated about 1650 from Prestbury, County Cheshire.
I wish I could participate in the Edward Winslow Celebration on November 28 at Droitwich but will be spending Thanksgiving Day with my family in California. I would like to express my sincere appreciation of Droitwich resident Elaine Turton who reached out to me from “across the pond” to connect with me as a descendant of Edward Winslow. I hope that someday this American Winslow relative might be adopted as an honorary Droitwich citizen.
Visit https://themayflowersociety.org/ and https://www.camayflower.org/ for more information.
