Virginia Dare

Virginia Dare
US postage stamp issued in 1937, the 350th anniversary of Virginia Dare's birth
Born	August 18, 1587 Roanoke Island, Virginia Colony (present-day North Carolina)
Died	unknown unknown

Virginia Dare (born August 18, 1587, date of death unknown) was the first English child born in the British Colonies in the New World. She was born to English parents Ananias Dare and Eleanor White (also spelled Ellinor or Elyonor) and named after the Virginia Colony.

What became of Virginia and the other colonists remains a mystery. The fact of her birth is known because John White, Virginia's grandfather and the governor of the colony, returned to England in 1587 to seek fresh supplies. When White eventually returned three years later, the colonists were gone.

During the past four hundred years, Virginia Dare has become a prominent figure in American myth and folklore, symbolizing different things to different groups of people. She has been featured as a main character in books, poems, songs, comic books, television programs, and films. Her name has been used to sell different types of goods, from vanilla products to soft drinks, as well as wine and spirits. Many places in North Carolina and elsewhere in the Southern United States have been named in her honor.

Virginia Dare was born in the Roanoke Colony in what is now North Carolina in August 1587, the first child of English parents born in the New World. "Elenora, daughter to the governor of the city and wife to Ananias Dare, one of the assistants, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke".

Little is known of the lives of either of her parents. Her mother Eleanor was born in London around 1563, and was the daughter of John White, the governor of the ill-fated Roanoke Colony. Eleanor married Ananias Dare (born c. 1560 - ?), a London tiler and bricklayer, at St Bride's Church on Fleet Street in the City of London. He, too, was part of the Roanoke expedition. Virginia Dare was one of two infants born to the colonists in 1587 and the only female child born to the settlers.