More than 100,000 people claim to be descendants of Pocahontas through the Thomas Rolfe bloodline, including two Dever cousins of mine who were born in Toronto.
A new educational, outreach program, called the Pocahontas Descendants Initiative, intends to find the thousands of Pocahontas’ descendants.
Building on the growing interest in genealogy and “finding one’s roots,” the initiative will share information with those who are descendants of Pocahontas or who are attempting to determine if they are descendants.
Gloucester County in Virginia and founding project partners Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock Tribe, Henricus Historical Park, and the Pocahontas Project of Replenish Richmond will work together on the initiative. Other partners, politicians, supporting organizations, including Ancestry.com, and individuals are invited to become involved.
The initiative will include hosting special events, maintaining a dedicated website, producing publications, providing genealogy and ancestry information and resources, and more as the initiative develops.
A new website, dedicated to Pocahontas, was recently launched and is being hosted on the Gloucester County Tourism website. The website includes information about an exhibit in the Gloucester Visitor’s Center, Werowocomoco, the Indian village site purchased by the National Park Service, and information on the new state park site which will open this fall. The website will be expanded to include more information on Pocahontas, genealogical research, as well as material on Powhatan and Virginia Indian history.
Plans for 2019 include spreading the word and connecting to descendants and potential
descendants of Pocahontas, creating a database of Pocahontas descendant prospects, designing programs for descendants, and and adding a social media component.
No information has yet been provided as to how descendants can become involved in the initiative. For the time being, the only contact is Gloucester County Assistant County Administrator Carol Steele at csteele@gloucesterva.info.
A detailed description with more information on the initiative is on the county’s website.
Are there any good links to show who the initial descendants are? Sort of a situation that they publish the initial known genealogies “down” the line for 2-3 generations making it easier for someone to connect “up” the line to tie the two together?
While the county said they will include genealogy-related info on the website, they provided no specific timeline as to when this will be done. In their announcement, they provided the “what,” but not the “how.” It appears more info will come throughout 2019.