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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (References to “Matthew” removed)

Edward Fuller (1575 – winter of 1620/21) was a passenger on the historic 1620 voyage of the ship Mayflower. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact and perished with his wife soon after the passengers came ashore to their new settlement at Plymouth.

Early Life
Fuller was baptised at Redenhall, in Norfolk, England, on 4 September 1575. He and his brother Samuel Fuller (c. 1580–1633), also a Mayflower passenger, were the sons of Robert Fuller, a butcher, and apparently of Robert’s first wife Sarah Dunkhorn (she was buried at Redenhall on 1 July 1584). There is very little additional existing documentation on the life of Edward Fuller in England. His father, who died by early 1614, left a will, dated 19 May 1613, in which Edward is named as receiving some monies as well as his father’s tenement, an inheritance which would take place after his step-mother Frances’ death.

Life in Leiden
The names of Edward Fuller and his brother Samuel Fuller appear in a Leiden, Holland record, but there is no other information about his life in Holland.

The Voyage to the New World
Edward Fuller boarded the Mayflower with his wife and a child, Samuel, born about 1608. William Bradford, writing in 1651, recorded Mayflower passengers: “Edward Fuller, and his wife, and Samuell, their sonne.”

The Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England on 6/16 September 1620. The small, 100-foot ship had 102 passengers and a crew of about 30–40 in extremely cramped conditions. By the second month out, the ship was being buffeted by strong westerly gales, causing the ship’s timbers to be badly shaken. Caulking failed to keep out sea water. And passengers, even in their berths, lay wet and ill. This, combined with a lack of proper rations and unsanitary conditions for several months, contributed to death for many, especially the majority of women and children. During the voyage there were two deaths, a crew member and a passenger, but the worst was yet to come when, after arriving at their destination, in the space of several months almost half the passengers perished in the cold, harsh, unfamiliar New England winter.

On 9/19 November 1620, after about 3 months at sea, including a month of delays in England, they spotted land, which was the Cape Cod Hook, now called Provincetown Harbor. After several days of trying to get south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, strong winter seas forced them to return to the harbour at Cape Cod hook, where they anchored on 11/21 November. Edward Fuller was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact on 11/21 November 1620, along with his brother Samuel Fuller.

In Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford’s 1651 recollection of this family reads: “Edward Fuller and his wife dyed soon after they came ashore; but their sonne Samuell is living, and married, and hath *4* children or more.” After the deaths of Edward Fuller and his wife, their son Samuel, then about age twelve, was taken into the household of his uncle, Dr. Samuel Fuller.

Death and Burial
Edward Fuller and his wife died, according to Bradford, sometime after the Plymouth settlement was established, likely between 11 January 1621 and March but the exact date was not recorded. They were buried in the Coles Hill Burial Ground in Plymouth, possibly in unmarked graves, as were so many who died that winter. They are memorialized on the Pilgrim Memorial Tomb on Coles Hill, as “Edward Fuller and his wife”.

My lineage descends from a man that EVERYONE has believed to have “died young.” It’s in the Edward Fuller Silver Book. It’s in the William Hyslop Fuller book. It’s in The American Genealogist publications. They are all wrong.

There are no records of an early death for Abner, and he lived in an area that kept fairly decent records. There are literally TONS of Connecticut records from the late 1600’s. You can find vital records, land records, church records, Hartford Assembly records, Town records… you just need to know where to look.

Proving our lineage requires Abner to live and have a son named Abner Jr. Our family records and the personal knowledge of Charlotte Fuller Rice Leffingwell Fuller link us to Abner Jr… and Abner Jr’s father was Abner of Easton NY… and Abner of Easton was 100 years old when he died in 1824.

So… proving that Abner of Easton is, in fact, the Abner born in Colchester CT in 1724 is the primary goal of this website and research project.

The secondary goal is to prove our unbroken patrilineal line from Edward Fuller b1575, and seeking approval from the Mayflower Society.

This website is basically dedicated to one man: Abner Fuller b1724 in Colchester CT.

Unfortunately, Abner was presumed dead in the earliest genealogical publications. We are working to correct that error and get an approved lineage accepted by the Mayflower Society.

On this website, all references to a generation (1,2,3) will start from Edward Fuller(1) b1575, Mayflower passenger.

My January 2023 Big Y 700 DNA test results prove that I descend from Edward Fuller(1) b1575 (Mayflower). I was grouped with other descendants of John Fuller(3) and Mehitabel Rowley. So, my DNA lumps me with descendants of Edward(1), Samuel(2), and John(3). Which means that I need to bridge the generations to my earliest known ancestor: Abner Fuller Jr.

Luckily, Abner(5) b1724 was the first of his name in the Fuller family. He was the son of Samuel(4) Fuller and Noami (Nem) Rowley. His father, Samuel(4), was the son of John(3) Fuller and Mehitabel Rowley. That means the line is: Edward(1), Samuel(2), John(3), Samuel(4), Abner(5).

Our research will prove that Abner Jr is the son of Abner(5) and the rest of our lineage proceeds from that sixth generation: Abner Jr(6).

DISCUSSION & COMMENTS
Comments can only be made on Blog posts. When any important topic is presented, a Blog post will be created to allow further discussion of that topic.

Any relevant facts revealed in topic discussions will be added to the individual profile pages.

Hello Cousin!

I am Kevin Fuller in western New York. My niece, Nicole, and I began to work on our lineage in 2020. We are attempting to break through a brick wall that has befuddled our family genealogists for decades.

This website is new, as of January 2023. We are going to keep the site “live” as we build it and there will be many changes in the coming weeks and months. Just as we are constantly updating our Ancestry.com trees with new finds, so shall this website change.

In November 2022, I submitted a FamilyTreeDNA Big Y 700 sample to determine once and for all that my Y DNA descended from a Mayflower Passenger. I joined the Mayflower DNA and Fuller Family Finder Projects to connect my results to other confirmed Mayflower descendants. On January 10th, I received the Big Y results which linked me with 37 other Fuller descendants. By the next day, the Mayflower and Fuller projects had already sorted my results and confirmed that my family does, in fact, descend from Edward Fuller of the Mayflower.

Click here to see the MayflowerDNA Fuller Big Y results. My lineage closely matches those in this line: Edward, Samuel, John. We’ll need many other Fuller males from eastern to northern New York state in order to identify additional generations. These limited results leave us with a big gap from John3 to my gggrandfather, George Washington Fuller b1841 in Henderson NY. George’s parents were probably George W Fuller b1782 and Charlotte Post b1795. He had at least 3 brothers: Benjamin b1824, Abner b1836 and Lyman b1838. This family was very closely tied to the Henry Post family and Benjamin Henry Post (Charlotte’s brother) in the 1850s. George’s b1841 wife was Marcia Adell Bucklin b1845 and they married in 1866. The Fullers, Posts and Bucklins all appear to know each other through the decades and they share several given names, including “Ambert.”

We currently have six or seven very active family genealogists with decades of research experience and mounds of records trying to break through that brick wall. We have made some recent gains in proving the next one or two generations and hope to prove them soon. I am hoping to find other Fullers whose families moved from Barnstable to Connecticut to Shelbourne, MA to Washington and Montgomery counties NY to Rutland, Adams, Barnes Corners, Pamelia, Lyme and other areas around Watertown NY. The collective, hive-mind of many families should root out all the missing family members in our line. Everything we find indicates they are all related, and I wouldn’t be surprised if every single Fuller settler family in Jefferson County NY is related. Please contact us if any of your ancestors are from Jefferson County NY from years 1800-1900. The towns of that geographical area were settled by pioneers about 1800-1805. Many of them came to northern New York from Massachusetts and Vermont. The generations before them came from Connecticut and Plymouth Colony.

A Word of Caution…

This website is NOT designed to be a resource for factual citation. We use this website to research and promote our family line to potential cousins and/or genealogists possessing data to help us complete our lineage. Individual family member pages may include theories, hints, guesses or complete leaps of faith. We will present facts and citations as needed for our own research, however, you should always rely on the source material instead of referencing this website.