Thomas Tinker (-1621)

Thomas Tinker was one of the Pilgrims who made the voyage on the Mayflower. He was a wood-sawyer, and was granted citizenship in Leyden January 6, 1617. In the winter of 1620-1621, he died along with his wife and son.

Nothing much is known about the Tinker family. William Bradford simply wrote "Thomas Tinker and his wife and son all died in the first sickness," so there is not much for researchers to go on. However, Thomas Tinker is mentioned once in Leiden records, when he was granted citizenship in Leiden on 6 January 1617, guaranteed by fellow church members Abraham Gray and John Keble. He was called a wood sawyer in the citizenship record. Charles Edward Banks in his English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers notes there was a Thomas Tinker, carpenter, from Neatishead, Norfolk, who married Jane White on 25 June 1609 in Thurne, Norfolk. This seems like a reasonable theory, and more research would be worthwhile.