Note 74 — Chapter V

I have stated here, in reference to the pedigree of an individual, a far more liberal rule of evidence than would probably be allowed in courts of justice, where anything of value was depending upon the establishment of a descent from a certain ancestor. But I have purposely suggested the broadest rule that can be applied to family or race resemblances as a means of aiding a pedigree in popular determination or in a judicium rusticum. For example, suppose that there were persons now living in this country who trace their descent from the English husband of Pocahontas, the daughter of an Indian chief, and from her. They bear, we will suppose, the family name of the Englishman whom she is known to have married, and perhaps one of them bears very strong resemblance to the Indian race in features, complexion, and hair. In a judicial trial of this person's supposed pedigree I do not suppose that these resemblances, if they constituted his sole evidence, together with the name of Rolfe which he bears, and which a certain number of his ancestors may have borne before him, would be received as evidence of his descent from the Indian girl whose name was Pocahontas, and who married an Englishman of the name of Rolfe more than two centuries ago. It would be necessary to make some proof of the whole pedigree by the kind of evidence which the law admits in such cases, and then the resemblances of the individual to the Indian race might possibly be received as confirmatory proof, in aid of the proof derived from the family name of Pocahontas's English husband, from reputation, written or oral declarations of deceased witnesses, family documents, ancient gravestones, and the like. In popular judgment most persons would be apt to accept the family name of Rolfe and the apparent trace of Indian blood as sufficient proof of the descent of the individual from the Indian girl who married John Rolfe. But in a court of justice these facts would go for nothing without some independent proof of the pedigree.