For the best and most current research on Pocahontas, I encourage you to
examine Helen Rountree's Pocahontas Powhatan Opechancanough: Three
Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown, which came out this year.  By
meticulous research into the few extant sources she is able to dispel a
few myths, although we know that won't change what people think.  Also
see Camilla Townsend's Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, which came
out in 2004.  
 
From an LVA research note, "Using Vital Statistics in the Archives of
the Library of Virginia," we learn, "laws requiring the recording of
births and deaths in Virginia were enacted as early as 1632, when a law
directed ministers or churchwardens in each parish to present a
'register of all burialls, christenings, and marriages' yearly at the
June meeting of the court."   So, Pocahontas was dead long before
churches were required to begin registering births and christenings.
Mr. Bergstrom's point about the baptismal certificate is well taken;
parish records from that period don't survive, and the possibility of
the minister having made a "certificate" for Pocahontas which still
survives today is fantastic.  "But I don't mean that in a baaad way!"
 
Pat Watkinson

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