When Denise Soules Caywood and her family gather at the table for their Thanksgiving Day meal, they will feel a special connection to the tradition. One that is nearly 400 years old.
Soules is a direct descendent of George Soule, one of the original 102 Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and who a year later celebrated with the Indians who helped the Pilgrims survive.
Soules said she was humbled and awestruck when, after nearly a two-year genealogical search, she discovered her family link.
"I am certainly proud to be a granddaughter of a pilgrim father," Soules said.
Among the many facts she discovered was the Soule surname took on various spellings over the years. Many American families can relate as their family names have changed.
Soules, a massage-therapist trainer at the Westin La Paloma, researched her family lineage largely on the Internet.
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I interviewed her in her antique-filled East Side home.
She took interest in her genealogy after she spotted George Soule's name on the Mayflower passenger list. She thought there could be a connection.
Family lore, however, did not carry the story of George Soule. He became lost as the tradition of oral history disappeared over time, said Soules, 12 generations removed from the Pilgrims' landing after their two-month voyage from Plymouth, England.
Her search began after seeing an Internet genealogy search program. Soules started with her great-grandfather's funeral card, which she brought to the East Side Mormon Church's Family History Center, a branch of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. That is billed as the world's largest repository of genealogical records.
Along the way, Soules received valuable help from Frank Soule, a distant relative in Chicago, and Esther Slater, a woman who lives near Soules' hometown in upstate New York and volunteered to do some research.
Soules' research centered in Cortland County, west of Albany, N.Y., where she was born as well as her father, Howard Soules, who died in 1998. While much of her family's history had been researched, Soules' search stalled between the eighth and ninth generations.
A breakthrough eventually came, connecting her to George Soule, a signatory to the Mayflower Compact, a governing agreement made by the Pilgrims. Soule is buried in Duxbury, Mass., a town he helped create with Pilgrim Myles Standish.
"I was so happy I called my mother," Soules said.
In her research, Soules also discovered her mother's genealogical history. She found out that Mary Jane Somers, her mother, descended from George Noteware, a Hessian soldier who first fought for the English but later joined the colonist rebels.
There was much more to learn. Some of the Soule/Soules clan were loyalists to the English king and fled to Canada after the Revolutionary War, while some fought with George Washington's victorious Continental Army. Some were rich, others were poor. Many were small farmers in New York.
"It's such a blessing for my family to have roots that we can claim back to the beginning of this country," said Soules, 53, whose sons are Todd and Brett Michael Soules Caywood.
But there was still one discovery Soules made. It is personal yet universal to many Americans.
We have lost our families' history and let die the tradition of generations passing down family stories to younger generations, Soules noted.
"Everybody has a great history, I'm sure," she added.
Tomorrow more of that great history will be shared along with great food.
