Posted on 06/08/2009 11:42:02 AM PDT by BGHater
Archaeologists have pulled a 400-year-old slate tablet from what they think was an original well at Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
The slate is covered with faint inscriptions of local birds, flowers, a tree and caricatures of men, along with letters and numbers, according to Preservation Virginia, which jointly operates the dig site with the National Park Service. It was found at the center of James Fort, which was established in 1607 along the James River in eastern Virginia.
Research director William Kelso said the inscriptions were made with a slate pencil on the 4-inch-by-8-inch slate. The writings were wiped off, but they left grooves on the surface, he said.
"There were things written over things, written over things," Kelso said.
Researchers at NASA Langley put the slate through three-dimensional digital analysis so they could decipher its pictures and text. The imaging system normally is used to inspect materials for aerospace use.
An eagle and a heron appeared on the slate, along with three types of plants, which haven't yet been identified. A depiction of lions--the British armorial sign in the early 1600s--indicates that the writer could have been a government official, Kelso said.
The phrase "A minon of the finest sorte" also appears on the slate, and Kelso said "minon" may have been an alternate spelling of "minion," possibly referring to a cannon, slave or servant.
The artifact shows the high level of interest the English settlers had in the New World's flora and fauna, Kelso said. The archaeology team thinks that someone probably started the artwork and writing in England, and added to the slate over time after arriving in the new colony of Virginia.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailypress.com ...
Oh heck, I’d have to scroll back on my family tree. Give me a bit and I’ll let you know.
ROLF!!!!!!
Is there a genealogy thread here on FR? I’ve got back to 1680 in VA. Been to visit the area a few times. Pretty wild to see the names on mailboxes and storefronts that are in your family tree back several hundred years :)
Take this for what it's worth, as I'm not a geneologist by any stretch, but I do have a lot of experience working with the early colonial sources and I'm an amateur linguist who researches Algonquian and Iroquoian languages.
And I have to say that "Chief Eagle Plume" doesn't look to me like an authentic Powhatan or Iroquois name. Indians' names from the early 1600s come down to us mostly untranslated. They tended to be written right in the original language, although a few were translated in certain instances: e.g. Pocahontas = "little wanton", "Hot Ashes". I did a quick search on Google and "Chief Eagle Plume" mostly comes up in geneology websites, with (as far as I can tell) no supporting documentation from the early 1600s. It really sounds to me, unfortunately, like someone making up a fake Indian name or borrowing a later name from a westerly tribe.
I may be totally wrong about that, but just be careful and maybe do some more digging on it. There are too many hucksters and frauds when it comes to American Indians, sadly. :(
Not that I know of but I'll nominate you to be the Grand Poobah of the Order of the Secret Genealogical Society and Keeper of the Mystic Ping List. I know, seeing your family name still around the old haunts is kinda neat. It almost makes you go up to their doors and say, hey cuz, but you don't. Uh, ok, so I have done that!
LOL! I HAVE done that!
Giles County, VA. Looking for a cemetery (It was there that for the first time in my life I realized folks had cemeteries in their backyards!). Couldn't find it anywhere.
Rounded this one hill and I see a mailbox with a "cousin's" name on it. Grand Marquis in the driveway. I told my son that there was a good chance an "older" person lived there ;) and so we stood a good chance of not getting shot.
Knock on the door and this guy, had to be in his 90s answered. A short explanation of what we were doing and he pointed us to a house "'round back" (which was about 1/2 mile away) that had a cemetery.
It was the wrong one :-)
We eventually found it by knocking on the door of a lady that was recovering from a broken leg. Her daughter answered and her mom told her to let us in. We explained what we were doing and she got really excited. Called 5 or 6 neighbors looking for this cemetery for us. She eventually found the right one. We thanked her profusely and she told us she was happy to as it was the first good distraction she had had in weeks from her broken leg!
Guess I should have added a (/s) in my post. No, of course “Jane” isn’t Iroquoian, that was a joke. Some thirty years ago, the Jamestown Park folks let us in to their records so we were able to fill in a lot of info. Yes, everyone claims they’re related to the chief. He seems to be a catch all but then he might have had several daughters and traded for them, who knows. By the next generation they were marrying English settlers.
Ah LOL!!!! Sorry I didn’t catch the sarc....I’ve heard stories like that too many times. :)
The “Jane” first name is actually more believable than the “Eagle Plume” last name. Here’s a few native Iroquois names from the mid-1600s: Daniel Garakontie, Marie Tsaouente, Catherine Gandeaktewa. Christian first name, native name used as a last name.
Anyway, check this out. This seems to be the person promoting him *rolling eyes*:
http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.dodson/724.749.750.751.752.796.802.804.815.828.3.3.2.2.1/mb.ashx
Oh my, were you hiding in our trunk? Exact same thing. Must be the norm for them to have total strangers asking about the old days. At one ramshackle place they pointed us to the old cemetery which we found down past the barns but we couldn’t find the “new” (mid 1800s) one up the hill. The guy loaded us in the truck and drove us up there. Yep, there were all the relatives!
Another time we were driving through a town and saw a business with our unusual last name so we went in. The owner claimed there were two lines of that name but they weren’t related and he was from the not related one - uh, I beg to differ since he was the spittin’ image of my grandfather. My grandfather’s family had left that town during the Civil War so those were some mighty dominant genes.
Once Mr. G and I were roaming around a cemetery and came across one of those old graves with a broken slab over the top. He read the inscription stating this was the guy’s second burial so he called me over to ask if that’s what it really meant. He had a good laugh about the slab keeping the guy in when suddenly, no lie, there was a horrible noise that came from under the slab. Mr. G jumped and ran to the car. He swears he wasn’t scared but he’s never gone out with me again.
That's from your link. O-M-G, hahahahahaha!!! That's hilarious! Sad, but hilarious. I haven't seen all that. Sorry, but the spirits don't need my $10, lol. I haven't done any serious work on the family for years and all that hoopla just reinforces my stance on never getting an account there. The internet can be a fine tool but most times you need get in your car and drive to where the original record is and verify it with your own two eyes. My goal was to get my side back across the pond and that's been accomplished except for a couple dead ends. If I win the lottery or some long lost aunt leaves me enough to travel on, I might start again. Thanks for the laugh!
I don’t know if there is a genealogy thread here or not. I would love to join one if there is!
I have gone back to the 1600’s for America, but then gone back to England and Scotland. Apparently I am descended from Mary Queen of Scots aunt through her granddaughter who was a Lady came to America with her Lord. Then the Revolutionary war came and the family lost their titles. Moved down south and in the civil war, lost their money (confederate money was worthless).
So there ya go. Cotton pickers descended from royalty. Yay America! LOL!
“So there ya go. Cotton pickers descended from royalty. Yay America! LOL!”
Sounds like my family! I’d like to participate in a genealogy thread.
Just saw on ancestry.com that the DNA testing is now $79. I’m a tad paranoid to do that, but it would be interesting to see back to where I came from back in the Stone Age, LOL.
“Just saw on ancestry.com that the DNA testing is now $79. “
Interesting, I’ve been thinking of doing that as well.
Yeah, folks threw all sorts of thing down the hole. I have friends who seek out old crappers and dig them out looking (primarily) for old bottles. Not exactly archeology, but the right bottles are worth a lot of money. It's not easy work, though, and even after 200 years, the crap can still be pretty nasty.
Hey, check out a sample of the pages you get. You also get to link up with relatives that are on ancestry.com that may be in Russia or France or wherever. This look way cool for $79 to $149! As a female, I have to pay more because they have to do two lineage lines on me. You probably would too or you could send in your father’s DNA, but then you wouldn’t have your mothers. Anyway, I’m seriously thinking about saving up for this.
Here is the link to the PDF file that is an example of what you get on top of the ability to contact relatives you didn’t know you had.
http://dna.ancestry.com/DNAStatic//pdf/DNASample.pdf
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Thanks BGHater. A rare ping to a Colonial America topic. |
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Don’t show it to Obama. He’ll say it looks like him.
I live in a 200+ year old house. I still haven’t found the original privy (probably under that huge apple tree in the yard!)
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