Just a reminder to be careful basing inferences about social history on evidence from surnames : in a culture in which marriage women generally took their husband's surname, the so-called 'extinction' of a surname says nothing about the continued importance of female family connections. Anyone who attempts to understand colonial Virginia society (I dare say pre-WWII Virginia) without being aware of sisters, aunts, nieces, cousins, sisters-in-law, etc. is going to miss more than half the story. Jon Kukla obscures > Another website that has just become live that might be useful is the new > British Surname Profiler at University College, London. This will show you > the historical distribution of surnames originating in the British Isles > and whether their roots are English, Scottish or Irish or originally from > abroad. The site can be found at > http://www.spatial-literacy.org/index.php?p=familyname > > Incidentally, Rolfe is an English name with a particular regional > distribtion, being found almost exclusively in the south east of England. >> >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: "John P. Adams" <[log in to unmask]> >>To: <[log in to unmask]> >>Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 6:11 PM >>Subject: Re: MALICK'S PIRATES OF THE CHESAPEAKE >> >> >>> Not to change the subject, totally. However I have a very serious >>> question. >>> Is it possible that ROLFE is not a Rolfe, but ROSSE. I cannot find any >>> Rolfe's in the English name books and since I am little familiar with > the >>> Germanic script of this time. The double SS format would look Ro"lf"e >>> instead off the spelling ROSSE. >>> Can any of you help me out. >>> Thank you, >>> >>> John Philip Adams >>> > > Dr Matthew C. Ward > University of Dundee > Dundee, DD1 4HN > SCOTLAND > > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions > at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html > > Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial 1250 Red Hill Road Brookneal, Virginia 24528 www.redhill.org Phone 434-376-2044 or 800-514-7463 Fax 434-376-2647 - M. Lynn Davis, Office Manager - Karen Gorham-Smith, Associate Curator - Edith Poindexter, Curator To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html