My family was pre-1670, Massachusetts, NOT Plymouth. They settled at Martha’s Vineyard. Only person most people would know that I’m related to is the late Patrick Swayze. His family went back a LONG way in U.S. history.
They tend to use the same set of famous people (probably because they have them in their database) and ignore others (probably because they don't), but it is fascinating nevertheless.
I found out my wife and I were distant cousins through a common ancestor in Rhode Island via a common famous person, Lucille Ball.
You might have even more fun. Any idea what the population of Martha's Vineyard was circa 1670? I'd bet you'd be working with an even smaller pool of ancestors than most of us.
One of the truly fascinating things about genealogy in this era is just how little people moved from one generation to the next. They might marry someone from the adjacent county but that's generally as far as it goes.
Then you have some major event like the American Revolution, completion of the Erie Canal or completion of a railroad and, all of a sudden, the next generation is moving far away.
My Dad had Dutch ancestors on New York from almost the time that Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island and they barely move-- Staten Island, Brooklyn Heights, west end of Long Island, that's about it, for more than 150 years. Then several of them join the American Revolution and congress can't pay their promised pensions and, boom, within 20 years, they are all in the Finger Lakes region of New York where congress awarded land grants in lieu of the pensions. A generation or so later, the Erie Canal gets completed and they're out of there.
That is funny. I have an uncle who makes the same claim. Is that you uncle Brad?