Stephen Hopkins, born on 30 Apr 1581 in Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England. Stephen died before 17 Jul 1644 at the age of 63 in Plymouth Colony and was buried there.

He married first about 1602 in England to Mary Kent born in Ratlake, Hampshire, England in about 1580, the daughter of Robert Kent and Joan Machill. Mary died in 1613, at about age 33, with her burial entry appearing in parish registers on 9 May 1613 where she is described as the wife of Stephen Hopkins.

It is known that after their marriage around 1602 or before, Mary and Stephen resided with her mother Joan where they ran a small alehouse. Stephen departed for America in 1609, with his children being left in the care of his wife.

He was the only Mayflower passenger with prior New World experience, having been shipwrecked in Bermuda in 1609 and arriving at Jamestown, Virginia in May 1610.

Stephen, traveling on the flagship, the ill-fated Sea Venture, survived a hurricane on the open seas, survived a shipwreck, was a castaway for ten months on a deserted island (Bermuda) then known as the "Isle of the Devils", was sentenced to death for mutiny (but managed to avoid execution), survived and witnessed the great famine and abandonment of the Jamestown Colony, saw and participated in the re-founding of Jamestown, got his persona written into a Shakespearean play (Stephano in The Tempest), and as minister's clerk, accompanied Reverend Buck in performing the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe, one of Stephen's fellow Bermuda castaways.

In 1614 Hopkins received a letter at Jamestown informing him of his wife's death and shortly thereafter came back to England to care for his orphaned children.

He remarried to Elizabeth Fisher on 19 Feb 1618 in London, England. He came with his wife and children Damaris, Constance and Gile. After what happened the last time he left his family behind, he was bringing them with him on this voyage, even his pregnant wife Elizabeth who gave birth to a baby boy on the passage across the Atlantic, and they named him Oceanus Hopkins.

Can you even imagine what our ancestors went through to get to the new America?  They surely were a determined group of individuals!