Good Morning Elaine
Thanks for responding. First --I am not quite sure if you think this is my
assumption or not. It isn't. In fact it is stated as fact in the book by
Helen C. Rountree pg 142.
*Pocahontas went right on with her lief after Chawnzmit's[Indian Name for
John Smith] departure[1609 after the gunpowder accident].  In fact, she got
married. It happened sometime in 1610, the year she turned
fourteen....Pocahontas appears to have had her own choice of husband, unlike
one of her younger sisters, for the man was not a chief picked out for her
by her father. All that was ever recorded about him is half a sentence
written by William Strachey in 1612:Pocahontas was "now married to a private
captain called Kocoum since 2 years since."

At least when the book was published Rountree was Professor emerita of
Anthropology at Old Dominion University--doesn't indicate which campus she
was on.

The Strachey ref is : Strachey, William. 1953[1612]. *Historie of Travel
into Virginia Britania.* Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia Freund. Cambridge:
Hakluyt Society. Ser.2, vol.103. I am sure LVA would have a copy of this.

I am still wondering how this statement from the book applies"cannot
actually trace a line of authentic, contemporary documents
stretching back to Thomas Rolfe".
 Is the Bolling line based on assumed relationships to make the connection
to Rolfe and Pocahontas's son? Rountree's statement is pretty strong
regarding the ability to document the relationships.

Douglas Burnett
Satellite Beach
FL

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 9:08 PM, Elaine McConnell <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Doug,
> I question your assumptions in the book you are reading.  According to the
> Encyclopedia Britannica, Pocahontas was born about 1595 and died from
> smallpox in England in March 1617.  Her only listed husband is John Rolfe.
> According to the encyclopedia, John Rolfe was born in 1585 and died in 1622.
> Their only child Thomas Rolfe was educated in England and later migrated to
> VA where he became a leading citizen.
>
> I have been told that Thomas was an only child and his child was an only
> child.  Thomas through his only child has produced at least 30,000
> descendants for John Rolfe and Pocahontas.  If this number seems excessive,
> remember, the births of these descendants of Pocahontas covers a period of
> 390+ years.  Perhaps her grandchild had a whole houseful of children who
> continued to populate the British colonies.
>
> Elaine McConnell
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Burnett" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 1:51 PM
> Subject: 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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