SAMUEL HINCKLEY and his wife SARAH SOULE came to America in 1635 with their four children. They came from Tenterden, Kent, England. Some reports of the manifest list claim only three children were aboard (omitting Thomas). George W. Messinger, Hinckley family historian, reports four children.

SAMUEL and his family came to America on the Hercules, on the same sailing as JONAS AUSTIN and his family. They settled in Scituate, Plymouth, MA. Early records show that SARAH joined the church there Aug. 16, 1635. They moved to Barnstable, Barnstable, MA, in 1639. She died there, Aug 18, 1656. SAMUEL married a second time, Dec. 15, 1657, to Bridget Bodfish.

The firstborn child of SAMUEL AND SARAH was Thomas Hinckley. In 1639, he moved from Scituate to Barnstable, MA, where he served in several positions of Plymouth Colony. He was the 14th (and last) governor of Plymouth Colony from 1680-1692, at which time the colony merged with the Massachusetts Bay. Colony.

A monument was erected in 1829 at the Lothrop Hill cemetery in Barnstable, which attests to his "piety, usefulness and agency in the public transactions of his time."

The two Bush presidents descend from SAMUEL and SARAH through son Thomas. And they are ancestors of President Barack Obama through daughter SUSANNA.