A while back I signed up on the Mormon genealogy site, FamilySearch.org. It is free, and has a ton of contributors. Of course, like any crowd source data, it is not free of errors…and on occasion I have thought wishful thinking. However, both sides of my family have been in this country since Europeans first step foot on these shores. This is especially true on my father’s side that has many tentacles traceable to very ancient European and British Isle ancestors.
I had stumbled across this connection by myself, but FamilySearch sent me an email about connections to famous people, including Pocahontas. So I looked up the connection again. The first four or five generations I am comfortable with from family stories or knowing the people. After that I am trusting the work of others.
This is especially interesting as I have nephews, nieces, and cousins in Oklahoma who are on the Indian roles (Cherokee) and receive Indian benefits. On my father’s side, I also have cousins in South Dakota whom I have never met, that are half Lakota (Sioux).
On the chart below the check marks are the lineage as it flows down through the generations to me.
I’m taking most of what I discover with a grain of salt. And while it is cool that I could be related to Pocahontas and other famous (and probably infamous) people, in the long run what does it mean?
If you want the chart in PDF format here it is: Pocahontus
And so it goes.
I honestly don’t know what difference it makes either, but people are always going on about some distant relative they are related to, so I guess it matters.