A FAMILY’S HISTORY

Alan Shepard was an eighth-generation New Englander who could trace his roots back to the Mayflower as a celebrated descendant of Richard Warren (c.1580-1628), one of the first sea-weary passengers to set foot upon the snow-encrusted shores of what is now called Cape Cod following the ship’s arrival on 11 November 1620. Ten years previously, he had married Elizabeth Walker in Hertfordshire in England, but in seeking a better life for his struggling family he had traveled alone by ship to the New World. Once he had established himself on a parcel of land in Plymouth, his wife and children Mary, Ann, and Sarah sailed on the ship Anne to join him. He and Elizabeth would go on to have two sons named Nathaniel and Joseph.

Remarkably for the time, their children survived to adulthood, were married, and had large families. Consequently, a vast numbers of Americans can today trace their ancestry back to Richard Warren and the settlement of America. In addition to Alan Shepard, Warren’s descendants include such notables as Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and even the Wright brothers [4].

Shepard’s middle name comes from his grandmother, Annie Bartlett, who in 1887 married Frederick J. Shepard in her home town of Nottingham, New Hampshire. The couple built a large home on farmland in East Derry and had three sons: Frederick, Alan, and Henry. Born in 1891, Alan, who was better known as Bart, was the father of future astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr.