First Families of Virginia - Organizing The FFV

Organizing The FFV

In 1887 Virginia Governor Wyndham Robertson authored the first history of Pocahontas and her descendants, delineating the ancestry of the Native American woman as it spread among FFV families such as the Bollings, Whittles, Blands, Skipwiths, Flemings, Catletts, Gays, Jordans, Randolphs, Tazewells and many others. The intermarriages between these families meant that many shared the same names, sometimes just in different order—as in the case of Lt. Col. Powhatan Bolling Whittle of the 38th Virginia Infantry, Confederate States of America, the uncle of Matoaka Whittle Sims.

In the early 20th century there was a surge of interest in Virginia traditions and heritage, especially among the FFV. In 1907, the Jamestown Exposition was held near Norfolk to celebrate the tricentennial of the arrival of the first English colonists and the founding of Jamestown. Preservation Virginia, formerly known as the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, founded in Williamsburg in 1889, emphasized patriotism in the name of Virginia's 18th-century Founding Fathers. Many FFV members attended the College of William and Mary including several members of the influential Page family, who helped establish the original College site and grounds.