Ancestors

Francis Cooke

Francis Cooke's ancestry is unknown. He first appears at Leiden, in Holland, on 25 April 1603, as a witness at a betrothal. That year he was betrothed there himself to Hester Mahieu, at the French-speaking Walloon church. The record calls him "Franchois Couck", from England, and her from Canterbury.

The couple went to Norwich in 1606 but were soon back in Leiden. Their son John was baptized at the Walloon church early in 1607. After John Robinson's English separatist congregation arrived from England in 1609, the Cookes joined it.

When the congregation sent its first party to America in 1620, Francis went on the Mayflower with his thirteen-year-old son John. Hester and the younger children stayed behind. He signed the Mayflower Compact at Cape Cod on 11 November 1620. His house lot at Plymouth lay between those of Isaac Allerton and Edward Winslow. Hester and the other children came on the Anne in 1623.

He spent the next forty years as a working colonist. He was one of the Purchasers who bought out the London investors in 1626. He laid out land grants and highways, surveyed boundaries and sat on juries through the 1630s and 1640s. In 1659, in his late seventies, the court still called on him to settle a boundary dispute.

He and Hester had seven children: John, a child buried at Leiden in 1608, Jane, Elizabeth, Jacob, Hester and Mary. Mary, born at Plymouth about 1625, married John Thompson.

He died at Plymouth on 7 April 1663 and was buried on Burial Hill. His inventory was taken on 1 May.

If Francis Cooke is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Francis Cooke (1583-1663)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/francis-cooke-1583-1663-391f92.