Pilgrim Academic Research Award

The Pilgrim Academic Research Award is presented at the Governor General’s 1620 Club Banquet each September.

The General Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Pilgrim Academic Research Committee is pleased to announce the ninth annual Pilgrim Academic Research Award recipient, Christopher C. Child.

Chris Child is the Senior Genealogist of the Newbury Street Press and Editor of The Mayflower Descendant.  Chris has worked for various departments of the New England Historic Genealogical Society since 1997 and became a full-time employee in July 2003. He has been a member of NEHGS since the age of eleven.

He has written several articles in American Ancestors, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, and The Mayflower Descendant. He is the co-editor of The Ancestry of Catherine Middleton (NEHGS, 2011), co-author of The Descendants of Judge John Lowell of Newburyport, Massachusetts (Newbury Street Press, 2011) and Ancestors and Descendants of George Rufus and Alice Nelson Pratt (Newbury Street Press, 2013), and author of The Nelson Family of Rowley, Massachusetts (Newbury Street Press, 2014). Chris holds a B.A. in history from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

Areas of expertise: Southern New England, especially Connecticut; New York; ancestry of notable figures, especially presidents; genetics and genealogy; African-American and Native-American genealogy, 19th and 20th Century research, westward migrations out of New England, and applying to hereditary societies. Chris has lectured on these topics and edits the genetics and genealogy column for American Ancestors.