One of the prayers Ida Hardy's family will say over turkey dinner today isn't your typical Thanksgiving blessing. It mentions, among other things, calloused hands, sinewed backs and an Indian chief.

If that sounds more appropriate to Thanksgiving in another century, it's because the prayer is almost 400 years old. William Bradford, a Mayflower pilgrim and governor of Plymouth Colony, first spoke the words over a Thanksgiving dinner in 1621.

Hardy's family has a good reason for its choice. They're descendants of Bradford and four other Mayflower pilgrims.

You could be a Mayflower descendant, too. It's been estimated that one in seven Americans may be descended from the 102 passengers who came to the New World aboard the Mayflower. Famous examples include Clint Eastwood, Sarah Palin, Alec Baldwin, Richard Gere and George Bush.

"It's such an American thing," said Hardy, who lives in Boise. "It's an honor to know that you go back to somebody who sacrificed so much to get religious freedom and ended up changing history."

Fleeing religious persecution in England, the Mayflower pilgrims arrived at what is now Plymouth, Mass., in 1620. They celebrated America's first Thanksgiving feast the next year.

Hardy is governor of the Idaho Mayflower Society. Though Idaho is about as far as it's possible to get from Plymouth Rock and still be in America, the chapter is 112 members strong and growing. It's raising funds to teach people about the Mayflower heritage and is launching a program to recruit young people from a prodigious pool of descendants.

"Every Thanksgiving I hear people say they're related to someone who came over on the Mayflower," said Boisean Belinda Isley, a descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland, John Tilley and Joan Hurst. "And they could be. The Howlands alone had 10 children. There are millions of descendants just from them."

Mayflower descendants come from hearty stock. More than half of those who landed at Plymouth Rock died the first winter, mainly of diseases and exposure. The 66-day ocean voyage and a hard New England winter with inadequate shelter required toughness just to survive.

"John Howland fell overboard in a storm and was able to catch hold of a rope and get back on board," said Howland descendant Richard Hart, Belinda Isley's cousin. "Belinda and I are lucky to be here."

The Idaho Mayflower Society, Hart said, has existed for more than 60 years, "but we're just starting to push it now. We want to get more young people involved."

Hardy's daughter, Debbie Lasher-Hardy, is working on that.

"We've never had a junior membership, but we're going to start one and have activities for children. We want to keep their interest so they'll stay involved all their lives."

Given the number of Mayflower descendants, that potentially could lead to thousands of members.

"There are so many people out there who don't know they're descendants," Isley said. "Once you find out that you are, it's a real source of pride."

Mayflower descendants can boast that their ancestors not only helped create Thanksgiving, but our form of government.

"One of the reasons we're all interested is the Mayflower Compact," Hart said. "It was our first representative government and led pretty directly to our Constitution."

While Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, Hardy sees a British twist to being a Mayflower descendant.

"People always want to find kings and queens in their family tree," she said. "This is kind of an American version of that. We're descendants of royalty."

Tim Woodward: 377-6409