This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ABC.2ACE/3764.1.1.1 Message Board Post: I believe the word "Tuckahoe" was used in several of the native language to refer to a plant, a kind of wild yam/sweet potato-like tuber which many used as a source of food. The place name Tuckahoe is common throughout the eastern US. One area of Virginia which uses it is around Richmond. I believe there may be a band near King William VA which uses that name, but I am not sure. Also another possibility - the Cherokee had 7 bands, one of which was the "sweet potato people". You could go on their website and ask if the word "tuckahoe" was used inTsalagi. However there were very few if any Cherokee in VA. I have relations from three tribes. They are nearly impossible to track. Also seems most everybody claims some Indian ancestry, most of them with no merit to their claims. Its cool to be Indian and a lot of people want in on the action. The problems with the early tribes is that they collided withthe European Colonists early on during slavery days and before cameras were inve! nted. Ther is almost no record of them. Several of the tribes in NC, eastern VA, MD, Delaware were taken as slaves and cross-bred with blacks from Africa. They live on only as a component in the African American gene pool. The more western Indians tended to be less easy to tame.