Born on August 18, 1587 in what is now North Carolina, United States, Virginia Dare was the first child born in the Americas to English parents, Eleanor and Ananias Dare. She was born into the short-lived Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island, but her legend endures until today since the fate of Virginia and the other Roanoke colonists remains a mystery. Her birth is known to history because the leader of the colony, Eleanor Dare's father, John White, returned to England to obtain assistance and supplies for the colony. He returned three years later to find the settlement deserted. Virginia's death date is thus unknown, along with her parents'. More than four hundred years have passed since the disappearance of the Dare family, but the legend of the baby Virginia Dare has become a prominent figure in American myth and folklore. She has been featured as a character in works of fiction, poems, songs, comic books, television programs, and films. Her name has been used to sell different types of products, and many places in North Carolina and across the American South were named in her honor.

Rumors of Virginia Dare's survival have also proliferated over the centuries. The most significant story relates how William Stracey, a secretary of the Jamestown Colony observed in 1812 the presence of two boys and one maid amongst the Eno Indian tribe. For four hundred years historians have speculated that the captive girl was Virginia Dare. Researchers continue to study the case, and in recent years DNA studies of members of Roanoke Island area Indian tribes have been undertaken, with inconclusive results as to whether tribe members have DNA matching descendants of family members of the original Roanoke Island English settlers.

Image: US postage stamp issued in 1937, the 350th anniversary of Virginia Dare's birth