Can you help?

Many questions remain unanswered, to me at least, about the Mays and their migration. Perhaps you know the answers. For instance...

How did they travel from Chieveley to Liverpool? The railways were very new and it has been suggested that perhaps they travelled by canal barge.

Their ship 'Kennebec' has been described both as old and as new. Does anyone have any firm information about the ship?

If you can add anything at all to their story, and to their ancestry in England please Contact me

The May party
who left England in 1852

George May born 1809
Hannah May born 1809
Elizabeth May born 1830
James May born 1832
Harriet May born 1838
Thomas May born 1840
Richard May born 1843
William May born 1846
Emily May born 1850

Henry Ballard born 1832

This narrative gives only the known experiences of the May family, together with brief details of the conditions they are likely to have experienced on their journey. There are many more detailed accounts of such journeys, and these can be accessed through the 'Sources' button on the left.

This web site is a work in progress which I have put 'on-the-air' in the hope of making contact with those who know more than I about the subject.

I will be adding to the narrative and the data as I learn more.

Jean M. Morris, who supplied these pictures, believes that the lady on the left was Harriet May, wife of John Cook Dewey, and that the other lady was also a wife of John C. Dewey. Can you positively identify either of them?

And do you know who the two gentlemen below might be?