Happy 100th Birthday to Dick Van Dyke! Did you know he was a Mayflower Descendant?

 

Dick Van Dyke 1964

We recently watched the PBS production of American Masters “Starring Dick Van Dyke” which aired on 12 December 2025 to honor his 100^th birthday.  You can catch this show airing many times this month on PBS stations and streaming online. Watching this documentary made me nostalgic for the old TV shows and movies like Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but it also made me curious about his family tree.  Of course, since he is so famous, it was easy to find a lot of information on his ancestry online. 

This is what I learned about his family tree:

Dick Van Dyke was born Richard Wayne Van Dyke 13 December 1925 in West Plains, Missouri and raised in Danville, Illinois.  His father, Loren Wayne Van Dyke, is of Dutch origins, and his mother, Hazel Victoria McCord, has English and Scots ancestry.  Dick is a veteran of World War II, where he served as a radio announcer and entertained the troops.  He married Margerie Willet in 1948 on the air for the radio show “Bride and Groom”.  He has four children and seven grandchildren. In 2012 he married Arlene Silver.

As an actor and entertainer Dick Van Dyke’s career spans over 80 years and he has won six Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award.  He is known as a slapstick comedian, singer and dancer, but he is less well known for his many dramatic roles.  He is also related to many other entertainers, including Walt Disney! 

I was surprised to find that Dick Van Dyke has at least eight Mayflower passenger ancestors.  Here is a list from https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-menu.php?name=6554+dick+van+dyke

Francis Eaton

Peter Brown

John Alden

Francis Cooke

Myles Standish

Edward Doty

George Soule

Degory Priest

I won’t give all the details (you can check out the websites listed below), but since I share a few Mayflower ancestors with Dick Van Dyke, here are our shared ancestors, and Dick’s lineage from these few:

Myles Standish

Alexander Standish and Sarah Alden

Sarah Standish and Benjamin Soule

Sarah Soule and Nathan Tinkham

Isaiah Tinkham and Susannah Ellis

Susanna Tinkham and David Child

David Lorenzo Child and Margaret Longwell Dysart

Susan Elizabeth Child and Ninian Alphonse McCord

Charles Cornelius McCord and Adeline Verinda Neal

Hazel Victoria McCord and Loren Wayne Van Dyke

Dick Van Dyke

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Edward Doty

Mary Doty and Samuel Hatch

Hannah Hatch and Japhet Turner

Hannah Turner and William Thomas

Ruth Thomas and Thomas Churchill Ellis

Susannah Ellis and Isaiah Tinkham

(see above)

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George Soule

John Soule and Rebecca Simmons

Benjamin Soule and Sarah Standish

Zachariah Soule and Mary Eaton

Sarah Soule and Nathan Tinkham

Isaiah Tinkham and Susannah Ellis

(see above)

 

Dick Van Dyke descends from the following Great Migration immigrants, and probably many more.  You can have fun finding a cousin connection with some of these colonial settlers.

Benjamin Nye

John Jenny

Griffith Bowen

Nathaniel Child

Edmund Freeman

William Hoskins

Phineas Pratt

John Johnson (c. 1588 -1659)

Thomas Holbrook

William Hatch

William Heath

Moses Simmons

For the truly curious:

For specific details on Dick Van Dyke’s Mayflower ancestors and his other colonial ancestry, see this link at the website Famous Kin:     https://famouskin.com/famous-kin-menu.php?name=6554+dick+van+dyke

Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Van_Dyke 

The webpage for PBS American Masters “Starring Dick Van Dyke”   https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dick-van-dyke-documentary/37036/    

All Family Tree results for Dick Van Dyke at Ancestry:    https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/42/?name=Dick_Van+Dyke&searchMode=advanced 

The Dick Van Dyke webpage:  https://www.officialdickvandyke.com/biography/   

The image above, "Dick Van Dyke in 1964" is by Rogers & Cowan, public relations, Beverly Hills - eBay itemphoto frontphoto back, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79770747

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To cite/link to this blog page:  Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Happy 100th Birthday to Dick Van Dyke!  Did you know he was a Mayflower Descendant?", Nutfield Genealogy, posted December 14, 2025, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2025/12/happy-100th-birthday-to-dick-van-dyke.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ SIMMONS of Duxbury, Massachusetts

SIMMONS / SYMONS / SIMONSON / SYMONDS

Moses Simmons or Moyses Simonson, my 9^th great grandfather, came to the Plymouth Colony as a young teenager on November 19, 1621 from Leyden, Holland in the second boat of Pilgrims on the ship Fortune.  He received a grant of land along with Philip Delano, who also arrived with him from Leyden.  He was made a freeman in 1633.  Sometime about 1635 he married his wife Sarah.  Her maiden name is still unknown.  They had seven children.

Moses signed his name with a mark, meaning he was functionally illiterate. He was made the Duxbury town surveyor of highways in 1657 and 1662, and surveyor of highways for Scituate in 1675. He was described as a yeoman, which means he was a farmer.  He has many land transactions in the Plymouth County records, and he deeded all his lands to his children before his death.  In his will he left only money to his children.  The inventory of his estate included no land [Plymouth Probate Records Volume 1, 107]

Moses’s oldest child, Rebecca, is my 8^th great grandmother. She married John Soule, son of Mayflower passenger George Soule.  Her daughter, Rebecca Soule, married Edmund Weston, and had a son, Nathan Weston who married Desire Standish, the granddaughter of two Mayflower passengers – Capt. Myles Standish and Edward Doty.

John Simmons, founder of Simmons Female College in 1899, where my daughter received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Some Simmons resources:

History of the Simmons Family from Moses Simmons, by Lorenzo Albert Simmons, 1930 (available at Ancestry.com)

The Ancestry of John Simmons Founder of Simmons College, by Henry Sherburne Rowe, 1933

Records of the Colony of New Plymouth In New England, edited by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, 1855

My Simmons Genealogy:

Generation 1:  Moses Simmons, born about 1605 in Leyden, Holland and died 15 September 1691 in Duxbury, Massachusetts; married about 1632 to Sarah Unknown.  Seven children.

Generation 2:  Rebecca Simmons, died before 1678 in Duxbury; married about 1654 in Duxbury to John Soule, son of George Soule and Mary Beckett.  He was born about 1632 in Plymouth and died before 14 November 1707 in Duxbury. Nine children.

Generation 3:  Rebecca Soule m. Edmund Weston

Generation 4:  Nathan Weston m. Desire Standish

Generation 5:  Nathan Weston m. Hannah Everson

Generation 6:  Zadoc Weston m. Mary Clements

Generation 7:  Matilda Weston m. Joseph Edwin Healy

Generation 8:  Mary Etta Healey m. Peter Hoogerzeil

Generation 9: Florence Etta Hoogerzeil m. Arthur Treadwell Hitchings

Generation 10: Gertrude Matilda Hitchings m. Stanley Elmer Allen (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ SIMMONS of Duxbury, Massachusetts”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 13, 2018, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/10/surname-saturday-simmons-of-duxbury.html: accessed [access date]). 

Surname Saturday ~ SOULE of the Mayflower

SOULE /  SOOLE /  SOLE /

George Soule (about 1593 – 1680), my 9^th great grandfather, was a passenger on the ship Mayflower in 1620.  He was then a young, unmarried man, and a servant of Edward Winslow.  He signed the Mayflower Compact.

George’s wife, Mary Buckett, arrived on the ship Anne in 1623.  They were married around 1625, and by the time of the May 1627 Cattle Division he was listed with Mary and their first son, Zachariah as the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth people in the ninth company.  They removed to “Duxburrow” or Duxbury where he lived for the rest of his life and is buried there.  During his life he served as deputy, on the grand jury, and other civic positions appointed at town meetings.   He had nine children.

I descend from George’s son, John (about 1632 – 1707) who apparently had a family rift with his sister, Patience.  In George’s 1677 will he recorded “If my son John Soule above named or his heirs or assigns or any of them shall at any time disturb my daughter Patience or her heirs or assigns or any of them in peaceable possession or enjoyment of the lands I have given her at Nemasket alias Middleboro and recover the same from her or her heirs or assigns or any of them; that then my gift to my son John Soule shall be void: and that then my will is my daughter Patience shall have all my lands at Duxbury and she shall be my sole executrix of this my last will and testament and enter into my housing lands and meadows at Duxbury.”  John married Rebecca Simmons and had nine children.

John’s daughter, Rebecca (1656 – 1732) is my 6^th great grandmother.  She married Edmund Weston about 1688 and had six children. 

Notable descendants:  actors Richard Gere and Dick Van Dyke

For more SOULE information:

The Great Migration Begins, by Richard Charles Anderson, 1995, Volume III, pages 1704-1708

Note:  Anderson reports “serious flaws” in the Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, Volume Three: George Soule, 1980.  He recommends two articles which point out the problems in The Genealogist, Volume 1, pages 225 – 258, and also in The American Genealogist, Volume 57, pages 57 – 58.

The Soule Kindred (Soule family association)  https://soulekindred.org/   

Family Tree DNA project for George Soule:

https://www.familytreedna.com/group-join.aspx?Group=Soule   

My SOULE genealogy:

Generation 1:  George Soule, born about 1593, died 22 January 1679/80 in Duxbury, Massachusetts; married about 1623 in Plymouth, Massachusetts to Mary Beckett.  She was born about 1602 and died 16 December 1676 in Duxbury.  Nine children.

Generation 2:  John Soule, born about 1632 in Plymouth, died before 14 November 1707 in Duxbury; married about 1654 in Duxbury to Rebecca Simmons, daughter of Moses Simmons and Sarah Unknown.  She died before 1678 in Duxbury.  Nine children

Generation 3:  Rebecca Soule, born about 1656 in Duxbury, died 18 November 1732 in Plympton, Massachusetts; married about 1688 to Edmund Weston, son of Edmund Weston.  He was born about 1660 and died 23 September 1727 in Plympton.  Six children.

Generation 4: Nathan Weston born 8 Feburary 1689 in Plympton, Massachusetts m. Desire Standish (granddaughter of two other Mayflower passengers - Myles Standish and Edward Doty) on 21 February 1716 in Plympton.  He died on 11 October 1754 in Plympton.  Four children. 

Generation 5:  Nathan Weston m. Hannah Everson.  This couple removed to Nova Scotia in the 1760s and had nine children, some born in Plympton and some born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.  Nathan died in Yarmouth in 1780, and Hannah died in Yarmouth in 1814. 

Generation 6:  Zadoc Weston m. Mary Clements. He had three wives (Mary Pratt about 1785 (no children?),  Sarah Mac Duffie about 1790 (seven children?), and last Mary Clements, my 4th great grandmother, about 1824) 

Generation 7:  Matilda Weston m. Joseph Edwin Healy. This couple was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, married in Canada, and removed to Beverly, Massachusetts where four children were born between 1852 and 1857.  Joseph died at the Battle of Saint Charles in Arkansas during the Civil War, when his iron-clad ship exploded. 

Generation 8:  Mary Etta Healey m. Peter Hoogerzeil

Generation 9:  Florence Etta Hoogerzeil m. Arthur Treadwell Hitchings

Generation 10: Gertrude Matilda Hitchings m. Stanley Elmer Allen (my grandparents)

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To cite/link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ SOULE of the Mayflower”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 15, 2018, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/09/surname-saturday-soule-of-mayflower.html: accessed [access date]). 

Tombstone Tuesday ~ John Simmons, College Founder, buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery

This memorial was photographed at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts

FOUNDER OF

SIMMONS COLLEGE

JOHN SIMMONS

died

August 29, 1870,

aged 78 years.

ANN SIMMONS

born at Provincetown

Sept. 1, 1797

died at Boston

May 30, 1861

SIMMONS

The plot card lists the following names:

1. Rev. Samuel H. Stearnes Dec. 26, 1837, age 35

2. Samuel French, Sept. 5, 1839, age 73

3. Theodore Simmons, June 11, 1840, age 0 yrs, 10 months, 0 days

4. Lorenzo Simons, Feb. 12, 1841, age 18

5. Frank Simmons, Feb. 4, 1844, age 11 weeks

6. John Simmons, Jr. , May 21, 1846, age 25

7. Ella Simmons, Feb. 17, 1853, age 1 year, 8 months, 0 days

8. A Female Stillborn, Sept 19, 1854

9. Stillborn Simmons, July 31, 1855

10. Genevieve Simmons, Jan 27, 1857, age 0 years, 5 months, 0 days

11. Theodore Simmons, May 15, 1858, age 29

12. Ann Simmons, June 2, 1861, age 63

13. Harriet W. Simmons, Nov. 20, 1866, age 37, 11 months, 13 days

14. John Simmons, Aug 31, 1870, age 74

15. Alvina S. White, Apr. 7, 1886, age 49

16. Mary Ann Buffum (from R.I.), Oct 12, 1887, age 67, 6 months, 0 days

17. William Arnold Buffum, Jan 30, 1901, age 79

note #2 here in error, should be 584

Notes on this side of the plot card indicate an iron fence was installed in 1927, and removed 1932 "by order of the trustees of John Simmons", and the granite steps and curbing removed in 1963.

"4 flowering shrubs in front & is surrounded by the same and 1 Arborvitae"

When I visited Mount Auburn to take these photographs, the memorial had recently been re-landscaped by the alumni association of Simmons College.

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John Simmons, son of Benoni Simmons and Nancy Bailey,  was born on 30 October 1796 in Little Compton, Rhode Island and died on 29 August 1870 in Little Compton.  He married Anna Small on 29 October 1818 in Boston. He was a direct descendant of Moses Simmons/Simonson, who was a Pilgrim in Leyden, Holland along with the other separatists who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts on board the Mayflower.  Moses Simmons arrived on board the second ship, the Fortune, in 1621.  John Simmons was also descended from more well known Mayflower passengers John Alden, Priscilla Mullens and Myles Standish.

John Simmons left Rhode Island in 1814 to come to Boston as a tailor.  He had his own shop by 1818, and in 1844 was the owner of the largest clothing business in New England.  He revolutionized the men's clothing business by introducing ready-made suits in several sizes.  He died in 1870, leaving the bulk of his fortune to found a woman's educational institution "It is my will to found and endow an institution to be called Simmons Female College.... to enable the scholars to acquire an independent livelihood".

Unfortunately, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed Simmons real estate investments in the downtown area of the city.  By 1899 his trust fund had recovered enough to found Simmons College. It is a private women's undergraduate college and co-educational graduate school in Boston's Fenway neighborhood.

For the genealogy of John Simmons, see the book The Ancestry of John Simmons: Founder of Simmons College, by Henry Sherburne Rowe, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press, 1933.

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The URL for this post is
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/07/tombstone-tuesday-john-simmons-college.html   

Copyright (c) 2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo