Research Leads: My Husband’s Ancestors Helped Settle Jamestown, Virgnia

The 1624 map created by Captain John Smith of the new settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

This past week, while comparing my own researching against that of others who share their work in Ancestry Family Tree, I came across some heavily documented public trees that trace the male ancestral line of our Roy D. Pace’s grandfather, William F. Pace (1846-1915), all the way back to Jamestown, Virginia. THE Jamestown, Virginia — first permanent English settlement in the current United States.

How cool is that?!

I’m just starting to research this lead, but there is quite a bit published about this family line.

It looks like my husband has several ancestors who lived in the early Jamestown settlement. Richard Pace (1583-1627), and his wife Isabella Smyth (1589-1637) — who immigrated from England, and their son George Pace (1609-1655).  If this lead is indeed true, Richard — who has an entry in Wikipedia — is my husband’s 11th great-grandfather, and George is my husband’s 9th great-grandfather.  My fellow researchers are in dispute as to whether George was born in Jamestown, or back in England.

I don’t find any of our Jamestown ancestors on the Historic Jamestowne lists of the initial settlers who arrived in 1607 and 1608. There are quite a few Jamestown history and lineage books available through Google Books that mention Richard Pace, and the Historic Jamestown site claims to have a biography of both Richard and his wife Isabelle available — but their horrid shop site keeps throwing server errors when I try to authenticate and activate my account (a sign warning me NOT to try to buy online through them).

I am very excited at the challenge of proving this lineage true!