In 1620, just 102 passengers crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower, bound for an uncertain shore in what is now Massachusetts.

The voyage itself was difficult enough. The first winter was far worse.

By the time the first spring arrived, only 53 passengers had survived. Yet from the families who survived and left descendants, genealogists now estimate that as many as 35 million people worldwide can trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower, including roughly 10 million in the United States alone.

That number seems almost impossible until you consider the math of generations.

Over four centuries, family lines branch and branch again: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and then entire networks of cousins spreading across states, countries, and centuries. Today, that family tree is thought to include people as different as John Adams, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, Meryl Streep, and Taylor Swift.

So one small wooden ship, carrying just over a hundred people, has grown into a family tree that reaches into millions of lives today.

You can explore a fuller list of notable descendants below, from presidents and poets to actors, astronauts, and cultural figures whose family lines trace back to that one small ship here.