General Notes

Thomas Rogers became a citizen of Leyden on 25 June 1618 with sponsors
William Jepson and Roger Wilson, and is called a Camlet-merchant. The
baptismal records for Thomas Rogers children have just recently been
found in Watford, Northampton, England; an account of these findings
will soon be published in The Genealogist, preliminary findings published
in "The Great Migration Begins" (vol. 3, pages 1597-1599) by Robert
Charles Anderson, 1996.
SOURCES: Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, by Eugene
Aubrey Stratton, Salt Lake City 1986. Mayflower Families for Five
Generations: James Chilton, Richard More, and Thomas Rogers, vol. 2,
General Society of Mayflower Descendants 1978.

ROGERS, THOMAS - A 1620 Mayflower passenger, Thomas Rogers was a camlet
merchant in Leiden, where he became a citizen in 1618. He sold his
house there in 1620 (Dexter, p. 632). His son Joseph accompanied him to
Plymouth, and survived him when Thomas died during the early illnesses.
The wife of Thomas, Elizabeth or Elsgen, stayed at Leiden, and she was
mentioned there in a tax list of 1622 with her children, John, Lysbeth,
and Grietgen; she probably died at Leiden. Son John came to Plymouth
after the 1627 division. John married Anna Churchman, and his brother
Joseph married Hannah (see MF 2). Bradford (Ford) 2:400, 409, stated
that Thomas's "other children came afterwards," and "The rest of Thomas
Rogers [children] came over, and are maried, and have many children." One
of the "rest" of his children, of course, was son John, but there must
have been at least one other, possibly more, who have not yet been
identified. See Samuel Eddy for some speculation on this matter.
Source: Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, by Eugene
Aubrey Stratton

Thomas Rogers became a citizen of Leyden on 25 June 1618 with sponsors
William Jepson and Roger Wilson, and is called a Camlet-merchant. And
just two years later, on 1 April 1620, he sold his house in Leyden before
coming to America on the Mayflower.

Thomas Rogers brought his son Joseph on the Mayflower. He died the first
winter, but his son Joseph survived. William Bradford in his Of Plymouth
Plantation writes of Thomas Rogers: "the rest of Thomas Rogers'
[children] came over and are married and have many children."

In the 1622 poll tax for Leyden are listed his wife Elsgen (Alice), and
daughters Lysbeth (Elizabeth) and Grietgen (Margaret), and son John.
John Rogers is known to have come to America and married, but
unfortunately the whereabouts of Elizabeth and Margaret remain unknown,
though Bradford seems to suggest they came to America and married.

The often published descent of Thomas Rogers from John Rogers the Martyr
is complete fiction. Thomas Roger's true English origins were discovered
about 1989 by Clifford Stott and published with supporting documentation
in The Genealogist 10:138-149. Thomas Rogers was the son of William and
Eleanor Rogers, and grandson of William and Joan Rogers. Thomas'
marriage to Alice Cosford and his children's baptisms are all found in
the parish registers of Watford, Northampton, England.

SOURCES:
Clifford Stott, "The English Ancestry of the Pilgrim Thomas Rogers and
His Wife Alice (Cosford) Rogers", The Genealogist, 10:138-149.

Robert S. Wakefield, "Mayflower Passengers Turner and Rogers: Probable
Identification of Additional Children," The American Genealogist
52:110-113.