My wife Amy Phillips Reese is related thru maternal lines to 3 of the original Mayflower passengers, William Brewster, Stephen Hopkins and Francis Cook.  This has fascinated me because the 1st Thanksgiving story and the founding of America is so entrenched in the collective consciousness of our country from this story.  The early founding of our nation was in in basic form cemented with the fate of these Mayflower passengers.  Even though, they weren't truly the first European settlers in the country, they've always been given the benefit of the doubt because they were an established settlement that survived.  European settlers in Jamestown Virginia in 1609 came for far different reasons than the Mayflower passengers.