In an interview with Time Magazine, Hugh Hefner, king of the Playboy empire, stated that he is a 10th generation direct-descendant of William Bradford, "who came over on the Mayflower and was one of our Puritan fathers." Not exactly correct, however. While the family tree of Hugh Hefner does stretch back to the Mayflower, William Bradford is more accurately termed a Separatist, not a Puritan.

The Separatists are often referred to as "Separist Puritans," so this is really just a case of semantics. The Separatists, including William Bradford, differed from the Puritans because they rejected the Church of England entirely instead of attempting to reform it from within. The Separatists were the Pilgrims who sailed to America on the Mayflower and established Plymouth Colony, not the Puritans. It is, however, a delicate distinction, and makes little difference in Hugh Hefner's claim of Puritan ancestry.