- A Leiden marriage record, 5 October 1619, for a "Jan Codmoer"/John Goodman, ribbon weaver from England.
- Samuel Fuller and Ann (Susanna) White, both confirmed Mayflower/Leiden names, as witnesses.
Leiden Connection: Possible or Uncertain
Eight Mayflower passengers sit in the gap between "documented Leiden resident" and "no Leiden connection": historically associated with the congregation, but without the city record, house purchase or church membership that would settle it. This page lays out, person by person, exactly what's known and what isn't — so "uncertain" means something specific, not just a shrug.
Why the evidence runs thin
Servants, wards and infants leave few records of their own
Most of the people on this page travelled inside someone else's household — as servants, wards, or as children too young to appear in a citizenship register or church deed. Leiden's Walloon and English church kept no membership lists at all, so even a genuine congregation member can be undocumented there by design, not by accident. That means "uncertain" here usually isn't a coin flip: it's a family with strong Leiden paperwork, and a person inside that family with none of their own.
The strongest case on this page · a Leiden marriage record, 1619
John Goodman
Leiden's own aldermen's marriage register records the betrothal, on 16 September 1619, of "Jan Codmoer, lindewever uyt Engelant" (a ribbon weaver from England), widower of Mary Baker, to Sarah Hooper — married 5 October 1619. This site's own record trail already carries the document and translates the groom's name as John Goodman. "Codmoer" is a real stretch from "Goodman" on paper, which is why an earlier theory linking the two was long dismissed. What tips the balance is the witness list: Samuel Fuller stood for the groom, and Ann (Susanna) White, née Fuller, for the bride — both Mayflower names already confirmed on this site's Leiden list.
No other passenger in this "uncertain" group has an actual archival record this specific. That's why Goodman is placed first here, even though the name match itself still can't be called proven.
Reading the record
What's established
- Certainty that "Codmoer" is in fact "Goodman" — the spelling gap is real.
- Independent confirmation from Jeremy Bangs's Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners (2009), considered the definitive scholarly source on this question, which wasn't accessible to check directly.
Sources: The full record on this site · Caleb Johnson, "New Light on William Bradford's Passenger List of the Mayflower," The American Genealogist 80 (2005): 94–98
Family tie, no personal record
Henry Samson
Henry Samson, baptised in Henlow, Bedfordshire in 1604, was a nephew of Edward and Ann (Cooper) Tilley through his mother, Martha Cooper — Bradford himself calls Samson and his cousin Humility Cooper the Tilleys' "cousins." Edward Tilley is independently documented as a weaver resident in Leiden. Since Samson travelled as part of the Tilley household, historians generally consider it likely he lived with them in Leiden too, including Leiden Pilgrim specialist Jeremy Bangs — but that remains an inference from the family's documented residence, not a record naming Samson himself in the city.
Reading the record
What's established
- Family relationship (nephew) to Edward & Ann Tilley, documented Leiden residents.
- Any Leiden record naming Henry Samson personally.
Sources: mayflowerhistory.com — Henry Samson · Wikipedia
An infant travelling with a documented family
Humility Cooper
Humility Cooper was the Tilleys' niece too — and too young in 1620 (roughly a year old) to leave a record of her own making. Her father, Robert Cooper, appears on a 1618 Leiden business document, and a 1638 baptism record for a Humility Cooper in London describes her as "borne in Holland." Together that's reasonable evidence for the family's Leiden years, though nothing places baby Humility in a Leiden register herself. After the Tilleys died in the first Plymouth winter, she was raised in William Brewster's household — a second, later tie to a confirmed Leiden family.
Reading the record
What's established
- Father Robert Cooper named in a 1618 Leiden document.
- Her own later baptism record naming Holland as her birthplace.
- Any Leiden record naming Humility Cooper herself — unsurprising for an infant.
Sources: mayflowerhistory.com — Humility Cooper · Pilgrim Hall Museum
A well-documented family, an undocumented daughter
Desire Minter
Desire Minter's parents left some of the clearest Leiden paperwork of any family on this page: William Minter became a Leiden citizen on 3 May 1613 and bought a house on the Groenhazengracht the following year; Sarah Minter served the congregation as a midwife and witnessed several betrothals between 1615 and 1617. After William's death and Sarah's remarriage, Desire is reported — on thinner sourcing than the rest of this paragraph — to have been placed with Leiden printer Thomas Brewer, before crossing as part of John and Katherine Carver's household. No record names Desire herself in the city.
Reading the record
What's established
- Parents' Leiden citizenship (1613) and house purchase (1614).
- Travelled in John & Katherine Carver's household, both confirmed Leiden residents.
- Any personal record of Desire in Leiden.
- The Thomas Brewer placement, which is less consistently corroborated across sources.
Sources: mayflowerhistory.com — Desire Minter · General Society of Mayflower Descendants
A name in Carver's household, nothing more
Roger Wilder
Roger Wilder crossed as a servant in John Carver's household — Carver being the Leiden congregation's deacon and its chief negotiator in London and Leiden before 1620. Wilder was young enough not to sign the Mayflower Compact. Beyond the service relationship, mayflowerhistory.com states plainly: "nothing else is known about him." No Leiden record has been matched to him, and he didn't survive the first winter.
Reading the record
What's established
- Servant relationship to John Carver, a confirmed Leiden resident.
- Any Leiden residence record of his own.
Sources: mayflowerhistory.com — Roger Wilder · American Ancestors
Servant to two Leiden families, own origin disputed
William Latham
William Latham joined the voyage around age 11 as a servant to John Carver and, after Carver's death in 1621, to William Bradford — placing him inside two confirmed Leiden households for most of his Plymouth childhood. His own family background is disputed: one candidate ties him to a Lancashire family with no Leiden link at all; another ties him to the separate Separatist congregation in Amsterdam, not Leiden. He later left Plymouth for the short-lived English colony on Eleuthera in the Bahamas, where Bradford himself records that he starved to death, around 1650.
Reading the record
What's established
- Servant relationship to John Carver, then William Bradford.
- Any Leiden residence of his own or his family.
- His family's Separatist tie, if any — the stronger candidate points to Amsterdam, not Leiden.
Sources: mayflowerhistory.com — William Latham · Wikipedia
Plausible pre-1620 residence, never a church member
Myles & Rose Standish
Myles Standish was never a Separatist and, per Wikipedia, "there is no evidence to suggest that he ever joined their church" — he was hired purely as the colony's military captain. Leiden Pilgrim historian Jeremy Bangs has argued Standish was likely living in Leiden immediately before 1620, possibly recovering from wounds near a hospital by the Pieterskerk after serving in the Dutch army under Sir Horatio Vere. No muster roll or city register naming him has surfaced to confirm it directly. What is well documented is his personal closeness to the Leiden leadership afterward: pastor John Robinson called him "the captain whom I love" and Standish left a bequest to Robinson's granddaughter Mercy in his own will.
Rose Standish, his first wife, is close to a blank page — no baptism, marriage or origin record for her has been found anywhere, and a popular claim that she was born "Rose Handley" is explicitly rejected by mayflowerhistory.com as unsourced. She died on 29 January 1621, in the first winter's general sickness, one of roughly half the ship's original passengers who didn't survive to spring.
Reading the record
What's established
- Standish's role as hired military captain for the Leiden group's colony.
- His close personal relationship with John Robinson and William Bradford, documented after the fact.
- Any city or church record placing Standish, or Rose, in Leiden.
- Rose Standish's origins or maiden name — "Rose Handley" is unsourced legend.
Sources: Wikipedia — Myles Standish · mayflowerhistory.com · Jeremy D. Bangs, on Leiden Pilgrim research
One name moved off this page
Richard Clarke
Richard Clarke was researched alongside these eight. A full search of Leiden's own archive turned up nothing — no record for any spelling of "Clarke" between 1609 and 1620 — and Bradford lists him among the strangers, not the congregation. He's now listed with the Strangers instead. See his entry →
Keep tracing the connections
Where this could go next
The one loose end worth chasing is Jeremy Bangs's Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners (2009) — the standard scholarly reference on exactly these questions, and not available in a searchable digital form. A library copy could firm up or overturn several of the calls on this page, especially Goodman and Standish.
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