Just to mention a few points about DNA testing, know what you'll
All,
Just to mention a few points about DNA testing, know what you'll get before you spend your $$$$$s......
Basic Y-DNA testing will probably not do any good in this case, as Y-DNA follows only the agnate (son-father-father-father-etc) line and will not identify Pocahantas as an ancestor ---- but will show a possibility of Rolfe if you have someone to match who has the same Rolfe surname and has good paper trails back to Rolfe and Pocahantas.
Basic mtDNA will be worthwhile only to follow the maternal line (child-mother-mother-mother-etc), in a similar manner.
The more expansive tests which I have seen, (23andme.com, etc.) will indicate Asian (as Native American) ancestry only within about 5-6 generations before the currently-living person doing the testing. Beyond that, the dilution factor introduced by all those ancestors before the present, the recombining DNA from the two parents in every generation, makes any indication of Asian ancestry essentially vanish to the testing process.
Check the websites (FamilyTreeDNA.com, 23andme.com, and any of the others) for good info on DNA testing.
I have been the administrator of the Weeks/Weekes/Wicks/Wickes Surname Study Group at FamilyTreeDNA.com for 5 years, and have seen numerous misconceptions and misstatements about the whole subject. Our group concentrates on Y-DNA (the "surname" line), and we have identified 9 different lines of ancestors, including the 4 published genealogies (Thomas Weekes of L.I., Francis of L.I., George of Dorchester and Leonard of N.H), as well as the unpublished William of MA, where our members have good paper trails back to the subject immigrant and thus can find a living cousin through a match on Y-DNA, and thus show a likely descent from the same immigrant ancestor.
Best wishes to all, the DNA exercise has been very useful to many of us, but it's only an assist to your genealogicl research, not the end-all!!!!! Brinson Weeks, Hanover, NH.
----- Original Message ----
> From: "Jones, Louise (LVA)" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tue, May 4, 2010 11:21:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] Pocahontas Descendants
>
> Mr. Bennett,
I think the best way to solve this problem of descent form
> Pocahontas
would be for people who say they descend from her to have their
> DNA
checked. They need to do the test that says what percentage
> of
European, Asian, and African DNA you have.
If you watched
> "Who Do You Think You Are" on NBC and Dr. Henry Louis
Gates series on PBS you
> heard them mention of this test. Emmitt Smith
had it done as did the
> participants of Dr. Gates series. Emmitt Smith
results showed that he has
> European, African and Asian Ancestors.
If the people you who claim
> to descend from Pocahontas have Asian DNA
this may give their claim
> validity.
Louise Jones
-----Original Message-----
From:
> Research and writing about Virginia genealogy and family history.
[mailto:> ymailto="mailto:[log in to unmask]"
> href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of James Burnett
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 1:51 PM
To: > ymailto="mailto:[log in to unmask]"
> href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Subject:
> [VA-ROOTS] Pocahontas Descendants
Good Morning To All Virginians those
> who love Virginia History
I need some help with resolving a
> question on the descendants of a
Native
Virginian.
The NGS
> Conf for 2007 was held in Richmond and the NGS Banquet speaker
was
Dick
> Cheatham. He purported to be a 14th generation descendant
> of
Pocahontas
and spoke in costume and character of John Rolfe of
> Jamestown, second
husband of Pocahontas. John Rolfe and Pocahontas had one
> child, a son,
named
Thomas Rolfe.
First Assumption: Mr.
> Cheatham's lineage is via Thomas Rolfe. I find no
writings indicating that
> Pocahontas had any children by her first
marriage
to an Indian from her
> tribe.
I am now reading *Pocahontas, Powhatan,
> Opechancanough;Three Indian
Lives
Changed by Jamestown* by Helen C.
> Rountree, University of Virginia
Press,
2005.
I got to this
> text by the numerous referrals to it in *The River Where
America Began; A
> Journey Along the James* by Bob Deans, Rowman &
Littlefield
Publishers ,
> Inc., 2007. In this text he was quite complimentary of the
effort by Helen C.
> Rountree on the Pocahontas book.
Now for a lengthy quote from the
> Rountree book.
"Thomas Rolfe grew up in England as an Englishman,
> though he retained a
sympathy for his mother's folk. His passage to Virginia
> was paid in
1635,
when he was nineteen or twenty, by his stepmother's
> father, and he took
his
place in Anglo-Virginian society as a landowner,
> his father's heir....
His
later career is shadowy, and he was dead by
> 1681.
Nobody in Virginia, elsewhere in America, or in England seems to
> have
taken
more interest in either Pocahontas or her descendants until
> well after
1800,
when the aristocratic Randolph family's oral tradition of
> descent from
her
(through the Bolling family) began to be publicized.
> Before that, none
of
her descendants' ancestry was any more the subject of
> record making that
that of most other Virginians. ...
Consequently,
> the tens of thousands of people proudly claiming descent
from
Pocahontas
> today----or asking genealogists to prove such descent for
them---cannot
> actually trace a line of authentic, contemporary documents
stretching back to
> Thomas Rolfe. No one can.[Here Ms. Rountree
references
Moore and Slatten,
> 1985, Magazine of Virginia Genealogy 23 (3):3-16]
Elements of Pocahontas are
> out there in the gene pool, allright, but
they
probably dwell in a great
> many people with whom the *blue bloods* would
rather not
> associate".
So first did we/do we believe that Mr. Cheatham is
> truly a descendant of
Pocahontas when he was booked for the NGS Conference?
> One would think
since
he was speaking of his lineage to a genealogical
> society he would have
been
vetted to some degree. I personally don't
> remember him using any
qualifiers
on his lineage.
Secondly does
> anyone have scholarly references that have been vetted
they
could share
> with us.
No! I do not think I was a descendant. No! I do not have
> a client that
thinks they are a descendant. The interest in this book was
> raised by
the
many references to it in the *The River...* and I am from
> Virginia and
love
Virginia history. Now I have what I perceive as a
> contradiction in
facts.
I look forward to your
> comments.
--
Douglas Burnett
Satellite
> Beach
FL
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