The Mary Polly Myth

Question

While searching for the wife of a 1600 ancestor in the early Virginia area I found in many on line trees his wife was listed as a Mary Polly.  In some trees listed as a Jane.  In researching other men not in my direct line and maybe not related to me ,  I found 5 separate men from the same area and time whose unknown first wife was suspected to be a Mary Polly or a Jane.

Anyone else have this experience.  I find very little to support these claims.  I do however think this supports the fact that people new to genealogy latch on to many myths.  I'm glad wikitree is educating people.

Comments

Polly was definitely a nickname for Mary, which explains the Mary Polly thing. It should be Mary "Polly", Mary/Polly or Mary or Polly. ie not a middle name.

Mary and Jane are perennial favorites like John or William, so you are going to find several of them in a given population.

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Thanks Anne.  I was not aware Polly was a nick name for Mary.  It just seems weird to me that all these men would live within a 15 mile square area and have the samed wives.

Answer 1

In all six cases it was also state the woman was Cherokee.

Comments

Trudy, in my mother's line there is also a Mary Polly Plain, supposedly a Cherokee. I doubt it, because no one has ever put forth any evidence. A substantial number of white people claim to be part Cherokee, and in 99+% of the cases it is no more than a family myth, with no basis in fact.

It's ironic, given the way the Native Americans were butchered by our ancestors, that so many yearn now to have Native American ancestry.

It's usually 1/16th Cherokee - not TOO Indian, but just enough...

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Old thread, but LOL! I am one of those 1/16ers, because my grandmother said she was 1/4. FWIW, my hope was to prove 1/8 somehow, because I heard you could get scholarships with that quantum. She never mentioned which tribe, but her people were French and from Canada, so if I'm anything, I'm probably Metis and American, which doesn't get you squat.  I haven't been able to find anything concrete, except for some persons with her family collection of last names are Metis. That's a lot of persons.