Pocahontas - I wonder why I can’t find a path to Pocahontas?

Joseph Raymond Burke consider:

1) Pocahontas, her siblings, and her ancestors kept no written records to trace back to.

2) Of those records regarding the descendants of Pocahontas only those male descendants that lived and died before the 1st US census in 1790 that were property owners would have written records existing that you could use to trace back to Pocahontas. Pioneer descendants that homesteaded often didn't have written records kept of their homestead claim because there was no government offices to lodge the deeds. Some managed to lodge records once government offices were set up, but not all. Males that did not own property would not appear in deed or tax records at all except occasionally incidentally.

3) Woman as a wife were property of the head of household male up until the 20th century and rarely is the maiden surname of the wife given in any records except marriage records in the rare cases those records exist. Now there is a 50% chance a descendent of Pocahontas alive today descends via a woman parent. Sure, today, in the 21st century in the USA woman have official government records kept on them and can own property but all those lines of descent from Pocahontas in the past via a women didn't have records kept of that line of descent.

4) Records burned. Records incorrect.

5) Mortality of parents was much higher is times past. Underage children whose parent died were often adopted by families of aunts, uncles, cousins, and even unrelated neighbors. And with that that written records would henceforth be incomplete and incorrect for those children.

6) Children were property of the head of household and not recorded by given name until the 1850 US Census. If the child was male but as an adult was never a property owner, tax payer, or married they wouldn't have written records of deed, tax, or marriage at all but that doesn't exclude them from fathering a child.

Still, even with all that, Pocahontas as the most famous person from 1600 - 1699 Tidewater Virginia will have more people individually researching her than any other individual from that timeframe and location so it doesn't no harm to spend all of two 2 minutes every once in a blue moon to see if any other researchers have discovered new written records or proven DNA linkage.

With all those negatives, and more I'm sure I didn't think of, to contend with the only proven written line of descend all the way back to Pocahontas is involves the male descendent Colonel Robert Bolling (1646–1709). That surname is sometimes spelled Bolin, Bollin, Bowling, and probably other way. Given the population bottlenecks of early colonial type settlements if you have ancestry that traces back to Tidewater Virginia of 1600 - 1699 there is a decent probability you will have decent from Pocahontas or one of her Native American tribe's relatives but won't be able to prove if without the proper DNA sources. There are plenty of people with residual amounts of Native American DNA that can't name their Native American ancestry in written records and why should they be expected to when Pocahontas herself couldn't do so if asked?

i can get a path to her son just not her
Lieutenant Thomas Rolfe is your 11th cousin 7 times removed.
You
→ Katherine R Gibson
your mother → Percie Roscoe Gibson
her father → Charles Odell Gibson
his father → Lucretia (Lecretia) Adkins
his mother → John Tradaughty "Drotty John" Adkins
her father → Randolph Adkins
his father → Lydia Adkins
his mother → William Owen, I
her father → Bartholomew Owen
his father → Robert Owen
his father → Joane Daniel Owen
his mother → Robert Daniell
her father → Martha Daniell
his mother → Helena Wilbraham
her mother → Margery Egerton
her mother → William de Mainwaring
her father → Margery de Venables
his mother → Sir Hugh de Venables, of Kinderton
her father → Hugh de Venables, 10th Baron of Kinderton
his father → Richard de Venables
his son → Sir William de Venables
his son → Dulcia Booth
his daughter → Margery Hyde
her daughter → Oliver Hyde
her son → Elizabeth Unton
his daughter → Edith Russell
her daughter → Lady Agnes Jenner
her daughter → Joanna Jenner
her daughter → John Rolfe, of Heacham
her son → Captain John Rolfe, Ancient Planter
his son → Lieutenant Thomas Rolfe
his son

@Melissa Gibson : A painting and knowing she was the daughter is a clan chief is not much in the way of ancestral documentation. They knew the specific individual Pocahontas, of course, but not much about her family or her ancestors. She and her family didn't even know much about her ancestry beyond vague oral records passed down with wildly varying accuracy as still done in many parts of the world.

When doing your own family research and DNA research, well-know historical people and the source records attached to them are important and a good check for your own work as often people have unexpected ancestral ties to some of them. You won't find people that have been independently more thoroughly researched over the centuries then those past well-known people. That prior work is becoming of increasing importance forensically for police and medical case solving.

Of course you'll have as many or more ancestors that disappear into history as destitute serfs serving their lords, but that's how things were then.

@Martha Eilene Seaman - because you don't directly descend from Pocahontas or one of her ancestors but are cousin to her descendants via her husband's ancestry. Had Native Americans kept ancestry charts such as many Europeans did you might be able to find a path to one of them as a cousin, or maybe not.

it should show in law and does not

I am astonished by the feigned intelligence contained herein

Omg!

Tsk

Best line of this thread is that King Jimmy and the royals got to meet Pocahontas. That's ripe.