My mother suggested that she had seen a letter indicating that Julia Ann Thornton was 1/4 Indian. At some point, someone even mentioned Pocahontas! I looked in the 1985 edition of the book Pocahontas' Descendants; although there were several Thorntons in there, I didn't see anything I considered to be evidence of a familial link.


Virginia Thornton of Tazewell County is included in a list of Civil War pension applicants at http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/pensions/civilwar/:

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Description                       State/County of Application or Residence
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. . . . .
Virginia Thornton, widow          Tazewell
. . . . .

I believe that the full pension applications are available somewhere.