I stumbled upon some information about my seventh-great-grandfather in a magazine article. Grandfather Richard More had been one of four children rejected by their wealthy, landowning father, who eventually realized that none of the children looked like him — he thought they resembled one of his tenant farmers, instead. Consequently, my grandfather and his siblings were sent away on the Mayflower. During their first winter in New England, his siblings died.

I learned more about my grandfather in David Lindsay's Mayflower Bastard: A Stranger Among the Pilgrims, of which More is the title character. After awhile, I put the book aside to work on another branch of my family tree, and my husband picked it up. One day, we were both quietly reading when he yelled out. As my heart rate returned to normal, he explained that he'd found a passage about my grandfather's “ordinary,” or tavern, in part of his home — this apparently was common in late-1600s Salem. The majority of his clientele had been sailors, a rough group who fought easily and often. One fight came to pass when a sailor denied having borrowed someone's boat without permission. The accuser responded by beating the sailor within an inch of his life. This unlucky sailor was Thomas Chubb, my husband's seventh-or eighth-great-grandfather. So 300-some years ago, our grandfathers were drinking in the same tavern. What are the odds?