Plymouth Rock and Diamond Head, far apart in distance and history, are close because of 116 people in Hawaii.
The members of the Hawaii Mayflower Society trace their ancestry to the Pilgrims.
"It's quite something to get on a ship and go to a new country you know nothing about. I've done that with my life. Maybe it's in the genes," said George Hall, 72, of Pacific Heights, whose family originated from the Pilgrims.
The Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower to Plymouth Rock, Mass., in the winter of 1620 for a new life free of religious persecution. Of the 102 passengers who arrived, half died that first winter.
But in the following fall, the survivors feasted. They invited 90 Indians. They ate wild turkeys and venison. They gave thanks to be alive, celebrating America's first Thanksgiving.
They also produced an estimated 35 million American descendants during the past 378 years.
"It's an honor" to be related, said Hall, deputy governor of the Hawaii Mayflower Society. "They were people willing to take a chance and believed in their own religious beliefs. And they proved themselves hardy people by surviving the winter."
Hall grew up listening to his grandmother's tales of Mayflower ancestors. But his daughter, Kimm Bates, finally tracked the family line down through marriage and birth certificates to a descendant of Pilgrims who was an illegitimate daughter.
"Our line stopped at Silva Sturdevant, born in 1757," Hall said. "After further research we found she was the admitted illegitimate daughter five or six generations down from John Alden and Priscilla Mullins."
The love story between John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, two of the Pilgrims, has become legendary over the centuries, said Robert Townsend, 72, of Waikiki, and the historian of the Hawaii Mayflower Society.
"An older guy, Myles Standish, thought he wanted to marry Priscilla, but he was too shy. He asked John Alden to ask her for him. When John Alden asked her, Priscilla said, 'Why don't you speak for yourself, John?' "
"So John Alden asked her for himself," Townsend said. "She had her sights set on John Alden, apparently. The line became famous."
The Mayflower Society has about 25,000 members, mainly in the United States and Canada, but their descendants live around the world, said Townsend, who traced his family tree to Pilgrims.
One of Townsend's ancestors, Edward Doty, and Edward Leister were the first Pilgrims in a duel. They fought in June 1621, supposedly over a 15-year-old girl who married neither of them. The men weren't seriously injured, according to records. Both were punished by having their heels tied to their necks. They cried so hard that their punishment was reduced.
"Everybody's going to find skeletons in their closet," Townsend said.
Hall was related to the first Pilgrim hung for murder, John Billington.
Nonda Maddox, 70, of Wahiawa, descended from one of the non-Pilgrims on the Mayflower, Stephen Hopkins, who had been to the new world once before.
"He was a character, a businessman and an adventurer," Maddox said. "Before he came on the Mayflower, he was shipwrecked on Bermuda and led a mutiny. He was court-martialed. He cried for his life and they spared it," Maddox said. "Someone on the ship wrote a story about it that ran in the London papers, and Shakespeare wrote a play about it called 'The Tempest.' "
Hopkins sailed home to England, then sailed back on the Mayflower and settled.
A national poll taken a few years ago showed 9 of 10 Americans had no idea why the Pilgrims came to America, said Dr. Martha Taylor-Roach, 72, of Waikiki, a descendant from Pilgrim Peter Browne.
"How dismal! I thought something needed to be done," she said.
Taylor-Roach and a few other Hawaii Mayflower Society members dress up in authentic Pilgrim clothes and go into schools to share their knowledge about the Mayflower and America's first Thanksgiving.
"The Pilgrims were very adventurous, freewheeling and forward-thinking," Taylor-Roach said. "Many people think they just wore black, but they loved colors. They wore purple, yellow and red."
The Pilgrims changed some laws in the new world, she said. The English had 150 capital offenses, and the Pilgrims reduced those to five, which they didn't entirely enforce.
They entered into a treaty with local Indians that lasted unbreached over 50 years, Taylor-Roach said. They also didn't hunt witches, like the Puritans who arrived 15 years after the Pilgrims.
"The main thing the Mayflower Pilgrims brought to America was the Mayflower Compact," Maddox said. "It became the foundation for our Constitution and democracy."
Knowing her link to the Mayflower makes Maddox feel she's "really an American" but no more important than any other citizen.
"We are a nation of delayed Pilgrims, rich with different cultures, different foods," Maddox said. "We are a colorful nation because we're a democracy."
