The name Powell is to be one of the most common names in the British Isles, and thus one of the more common names here in the United States. In your research, looking at different blogs and family trees, have you noticed that no two trees match from A to Z? I believe that the problem might be that early on a few researchers failed to notice that 5 Powell brothers did not settle in colonial Jamestown and surrounding area. Over the period of the first fifty years there were at least 8 different unrelated Powell men who settle in colonial Virginia, married and started family lines. There were also at least 6 different Powell men that were either kill or died from disease or starvation without reproducing offspring in the early years. As many of these men were named John, Nathaniel, Thomas, or William. It appears that some early researchers combined some of these different Powell’s’ into a single person, and mistakenly made brothers out of a couple of others, and now many present-day researchers are just copping this incorrect information over and over. I am a descendent of Lucas Powell b. about 1722 near Williamsburg, Virginia. My line is proved back to him. The trouble is who was his father? There a at least a half a dozen different men listed as his father, but as you know, you have one paternal father, so which one is right and which ones are wrong? The strange thing is, is that the parents most commonly believe to be his parents, have no documented proof. Also, the couple most commonly listed as his parents lived in Northern Virginia and Lucas grew up and spent most of his life in Southern Virgina. As a matter of fact, there appears to be proof that points in another direction. Because of things like this and the blending of multiple indivisibles into one, I am undertaking this task in order to try and separate them back into induvial beings, so that I can try and resolve who Lucas’s progenitor was in Virginia. I believe I know his family line back to their arrival in Virgina, but as I cannot find a paper trail, I cannot list it them.
I am sure that I will make some mistakes as it is hard to find documentation from 300 to 400 years ago. As a lot was lost in the early Indian uprisings, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, not to mention fires, floods and storms. I will try hard to make sure that I document everything. We all need to take a little more time with our research, and show are proof, double check and then double check it again. We all make mistakes, believe me I know, as I have made may and had to go back and correct my work. A family history that is not correct, is not history.