How We Became a Society

The Billington Family Society was organized at the 2017 Congress held at Plymouth, MA. A small group of cousins passed the hat to come up with $250 to be a family partner of GSMD. Our charter members were 16 on that first meeting and we elected Marsha Berland as our first Governor.  Our family has 4 pilgrims, John, Elinor, John Jr., and Francis were on the Mayflower. Francis has many living descendants. John Jr did not have children as he died abt 1628. Our family society established a Facebook page for Billington cousins. We have over 300 plus members. We are growing! Come join us! We share family stories, pictures, DNA projects and our history. Our goal is to support each other just like the family we are. Our philosophy is a bit different than other family societies. We believe in family having fun together and celebrating our Woodsman, John Billington. We sold a beautiful medallion celebrating our “John”.  It was designed by one of our members and we sold out in the month. Another member designed a shirt for our family, and it was a hit. It is estimated the Billington’s have one million cousins today. Our society donated money to the Y DNA project for Billington surname at Family Tree DNA. We are actively looking for another man with the Billington Surname for the Big y700 project. We are actively looking for a female who can prove their lineage to Christian Penn to captured her mtDNA(mother to mother). Our society is sponsoring a research project in England in hopes we can find the parents of John and Elinor. Come join us and help us move the Billington research forward.

BILLINGTON FAMILY TOUR

September 12, 2021

Our very own Billington Woodsman, Mr. Rounds, has planned a tour of the area in MA that our Billingtons moved to after leaving Plymouth, MA around 1640. The tour will cover our ancestor’s area in Middleborough where our ancestor, Francis Billington is buried abt 1684 at the age of 78. The Nemasket Hill Cemetery visit will introduce us to many of our ancestor’s final resting place. The first burial was in 1662. The early settlers for two generations are buried here. Our tour will find us vising Anawan Rock at Rehoboth, MA.  This location where Chief Anawan of the Wampanoags was captured. Next, we will meet at the Ring of the Green in East Providence. This was the next stop of many of our ancestors, Kingsleys, Oulds and Olds, and Sabins moved there. The Newman Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in America. It has first generation headstones and the Church of Kingsleys of 1640. I wonder who we will find buried here? An incredibly special tour of the Carpenter Museum and the Trim Genealogy Room will be led by a Billington descendant who lives in the area. Next on our stop, Mt Hope was the main camp of the Wampanoag’s home. They were living here at the time of the Mayflower’s arrival in 1620. Then, we will visit Swansea where the first attack of the King Phillip War and the Church of the Kingsleys took place. We will visit the cemetery that Francis’ daughter, Mercy Billington and 8 generations of family are buried. If time permits, we will visit the Woodcock Garrison and return to Plymouth after a short visit to the Billington Sea. If you are interested in participating send an email to billingtonfamilysociety@gmail.com, I will send you a form to join our group on this special day.