I've read just about every book or record found as a standard item in "The Virginia Room" (a special deal in Virginia ~ every county has at least one such "Room").
Plus, had an ancestor who was the Segravier to Jeanne de Laval, the second wife of Rene of Anjou. Rene was Father in Law of Henry VII and grandfather of Henry VIII, and great grandfather of Mary, Elizabeth, AND, lo and behold, James, so finding "fambly" right here in Virginia a few years BEFORE the founding of Jamestown wasn't all that surprising.
Rene was also multiply related to Ferdinand of Spain, and his wife Isabella. Christopher Columbus sailed for him, and his brother did cartography for him. He fought a war with Padua to bring Leonardo da Vinci back to France to teach in a University the King of France built for him.
This is the fellow who, when young, became patron to Jeanne d'Arc.
That's the focal point for my understanding of the settlement of America by the Eur/African peoples.
It goes on from there in vast detail, but knowing the lineages, the relationships any of them had to the ancestor who administered the "Foret de Beaufort" itself, enables me to every now and then find a link that would be otherwise unexpected.
Such an event happened not too long ago when I finally understood that three young men in a rowboat off Nova Scotia in 1613 included a Bourbon family member whose Grandfather was known as Count Jacob Pontusson De la Gardie, the fellow who rearmed Sweden and initiated the Swedish Empire under the Vassa King.
By 1638 Jacob's son Pontus founded New Sweden (and designed Fort Christian) in Delaware!
There is a strong link between the Late Middle Ages and the American Frontier!
“There is a strong link between the Late Middle Ages and the American Frontier!”
And if there isn’t already a book describing this then you owe us one.. I really enjoyed your description of the Saami people in New Sweden on another thread. That long forgotten colonial tribe certainly appears to explain the Christmas iconography of the United States.
I grew up in Virginia but that was a long time ago. If there was a Virginia Room in Arlington I didn’t learn of it. I have a few ancestors leading back to Jamestown’s environs, including some Huguenots and one fellow named Robert Lee, but I don’t know much about them other than their names.