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The Mayflower story begins with the origins of the people who became known as the Pilgrims - the passengers on the Mayflower.
They boarded the Mayflower in Plymouth UK in 1620 and against great odds, crossed the Atlantic to reach what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts.
But their story starts with the beginnings of the Separatist movement in England, taking in a spell in Holland before the pioneering voyage.
When these Separatists boarded the Mayflower they were joined by others known as 'Strangers', plus servants and the crew.
These pages seek to tell their stories.
John Alden was born in Harwich in 1598 and travelled on the Mayflower, before being given the choice by his employers to stay in America or return to England after the voyage.
He chose to settle across the Atlantic - a decision which ultimately led to him meeting the love of his life.
There are many notable figures in the Mayflower story, but few people played a bigger role in establishing Plymouth Colony than Isaac Allerton.
During his time in England and Holland, Allerton was a humble tailor - but all that was to change when he boarded the ship in Plymouth in September 1620.
John Billington and his family miraculously all survived the first harsh winter in Massachusetts which claimed the lives of so many who had boarded the ship in Plymouth on 16 September, 1620.
But Billington's place in history was truly cemented in 1630 when he shot and killed a fellow colonist - a deed which would make him forever known as America's first murderer.
The wife of first governor William Bradford, Dorothy Bradford and the other passengers were anchored off Provincetown Harbour when the group sent out several men to explore the region to seek out the best place to build their Colony.
While her husband was ashore, though, tragedy struck…
He may not have been first choice for the role of Governor of Plymouth Colony, but William Bradford became the man who would lead the colonists during their formative years in America.
Despite being a long-standing member of the Separatist group and playing a huge part in their plans to sail across the Atlantic, Bradford was yet to assume any leadership role for the Pilgrims - but that was to change very quickly.
He hailed from a sleepy village in England - but would go on to influence the future of one of the world’s biggest nations.
William Brewster was one of the elders in the new colony of Plymouth, but his history stretches back to a little church in Nottinghamshire.
He was the first signature on the historic Mayflower Compact, the first governor of the Plymouth colony and the man who negotiated peace with the Native American Wampanoag community.
But John Carver would never live to see the new life he had built for the passengers of the Mayflower in the New World.
After signing the Mayflower Compact, and led by First Governor John Carver, the exhausted group finally left the ship after many gruelling weeks in what is now Provincetown Harbour, Massachusetts, and headed for land.
However, neither Carver nor any of the other ‘true’ Pilgrims were the first to step ashore. Instead, that ‘honour’ went to a 13-year-old girl named Mary Chilton.
"Is there a doctor on board?": The six words that no modern-day air or sea traveller wants to hear during their journey!
It was a different story some 400 years ago and luckily for those who boarded the Mayflower in 1620, one of the passengers was...
A strange and uncertain new world awaited those who boarded the Mayflower nearly 400 years ago. Among them was one Mayflower passenger who had already set foot on US soil more than a decade earlier.
Stephen Hopkins had spent several years in Virginia during a previous voyage, and his experience was to prove vital in the colonists' early expeditions and the years that followed.
As if the colonists' perilous transatlantic crossing wasn't harrowing enough, imagine how frightened John Howland must have been when he fell overboard as a storm of epic proportions battered the Mayflower?
Howland was thrown overboard during nightmare sea conditions but managed to grab hold of a trailing rope, giving the Mayflower crew just enough time to rescue him with a boat-hook.
He was the man who captained the Mayflower and without him the Pilgrims would not have made it across the Atlantic and the fierce storms that brutalised them.
But who was Captain Christopher Jones, where did he come from and how did he come to play such a vital role in the Mayflower story?
Christopher Martin was an influential figure in the Mayflower story and was one of the 41 signatories on the Mayflower Compact that became the first governing document of Plymouth Colony.
He was also initially the Governor of the passengers who boarded the ill-fated Speedwell and later took charge on the Mayflower, until he was replaced by John Carver.
Priscilla Mullins was born in Dorking, Surrey, the daughter of William and step-daughter of Alice Mullins.
Being just 17 years old at the time of the Mayflower voyage, Mullins was not one of the 18 women recorded to have crossed the Atlantic in 1620, and the harsh winter certainly took its toll on her family.
Modern-day exploration doesn't come cheap, and the same was certainly true 400 years ago. Indeed, not even the Mayflower could have crossed the Atlantic in 1620 without the necessary funding in place.
One man who made a telling financial contribution to the famous voyage was William Mullins.
He was pastor to the Pilgrims and one of the founders of the radical Separatist movement - but John Robinson would never set foot on the Mayflower
His influence on the story cannot be underestimated, though, and for those tracing ancestry through the places from where the Pilgrims originated, Robinson’s legacy is a recurring theme.
After signing the Mayflower Compact, the next step for the Mayflower passengers was to investigate their strange new surroundings.
The intrepid explorers who mounted these expeditions were crucial in establishing Plymouth Colony - and there were few people in the group more fearless than Edward Tilley.
With the odds firmly stacked against them, the passengers and crew aboard the Mayflower eventually reached Cape Cod after 66 long and perilous days at sea.
Among them was Richard Warren, who boarded the ship alone on 16 September, 1620 and went on to play an important role in establishing Plymouth Colony.
Edward Winslow often isn’t the most heralded of the Mayflower passengers. His skills in diplomacy, writing and politics don’t usually put him in the story books’ limelight.
But his ability to forge friendships with the Native American community, battle in England’s corridors of power and help communicate the Mayflower’s legacy mean he is one of the story’s crucial figures.
Persecuted and pursued by the Crown and the Church, these Separatists chose to leave England and cross the Atlantic to start a new life in America.
But there were four passengers who had that choice taken away from them – and at an extremely tender age. This is the tragic story of the More children…
Little is known about the children who sailed on the Mayflower some 400 years ago, but it is thought that there were around 30 on board the ship when the group departed Plymouth.
Richard Pickering, Deputy Director of Plimoth Patuxet Living Museum, explores more about the children of the Mayflower.
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