Along with about 10 million other Americans, at least one of my ancestors arrived on the Mayflower in 1620 and celebrated a Thanksgiving feast in 1621.

Fifty-one of the original pilgrims lived long enough to leave surviving children. Four centuries later, their genes have left a large imprint on the population. If you know some of your ancestors were in the U.S. before about 1850, odds are pretty decent you’re directly connected to the Mayflower.

My Winter family’s strongest connection is with Samuel Fuller, the settlers’ “doctor” — though considering half of the new arrivals died the first winter, his medical qualifications may be in question.

Undoubtedly brave and devout, the early New England settlers nevertheless have a tarnished legacy, a fact brought home to me by growing up on and near an Indian reservation, where Thanksgiving is emphatically not a cherished time. Even so, it’s always among my favorite holidays, probably for the same reasons it is for many of you: Family, traditional food, nostalgia, thankfulness for all that remains fundamentally good in our world.

As Sunday New York Times columnist Pamela Paul observed, “Boiled down to its essentials, Thanksgiving is a holiday about shared gratitude. We could just think about the ‘thanks’ in Thanksgiving for a change. That gratitude may have originally been intended toward God and those Native Americans who helped the newly arrived colonists survive — and for whom atonement may have been more appropriate. But even for us secular humanists, Thanksgiving offers a moment to appreciate whatever good this year wrought, even if by accident or chance.”

As I make my pies this week — one maple-walnut and one pumpkin — I’ll be hoping all of you are enjoying being with loved ones and savoring everything that is delicious about life.

If you’re curious about your own Mayflower connections, this article offers advice and links: tinyurl.com/Find-Mayflower-Ancestors.

To read one of my Thanksgiving columns in the Chinook Observer, please see tinyurl.com/Chinook-Observer-Thanksgiving.

And as always, I am so grateful to each of you for participating in the Chinook Observer, a community project.