[Vigilanteman]

ALL the oldest colonial families have an Indian ancestor . . .

Interesting stuff. This and your post #38.

I'm not sure we can state with 100% certainty that ALL the oldest colonial families have an Indian ancestor because there is probably an exception somewhere.

It would certainly be accurate to state nearly all or the older the colonial family, then the greater the probability.

Due to the small size of the gene pool, there is a high probability that anyone who had ancestors in America before 1670 is related. For instance, my wife and I both are descendants of a Rev. John Crandall, an early Baptist minister in Rhode Island and contemporary of Roger Williams.

But there would still be exceptions to the 1670 rule. A handful of people imported brides from the old country to avoid intermarriage with either the Native Americans or their relatives already in America.

Post-1670, America became a place to expel undesireables such as debtors, paupers and petty criminals, so the gene pool greatly enlarged after that point.

[muawiyah]

There was a flurry of settlement of the English "set aside' in the 1620s, and then the 30 years war interfered with doing much after that for a good long while.

There were a lot of guys and not many women. Most habitations were hardly fit for the most rugged ~ the death rate was incredible.

About the 1670s it became popular to send people to America ~ free rides!

[muawiyah]

Also, check out America 1676 ~ very interesting. One of the things that happened in Virginia to really screw up genealogists for all time was the great name change. All of the people involved in Bacon's Rebellion, which included about everybody in the colony, more or less changed their surnames to avoid prosecution ~ by either the new Crown government or elements of the older proprietorship government. One of the standard estimates is 24 out of 25 men changed their names!

George Washington's genealogy depends on men who probably changed their names.