Pioneer American Colonist. She was the first English child born in America. Daughter of Ananias Dare and Ellinor White, she was born on Roanoke Island and christened "Virginia" in honor of the new colony. Born in the Colony of Virginia, the location is now in present-day North Carolina's Outer Banks. Her father served on the twelve-member board of directors for the Roanoke Colony, and her mother Eleanor was the daughter of Governor John White. She was baptized into the Church of England on August 24, 1587 and was the first child and second person in America christened into the Church of England, the first to be christened was a Native American. Leaving England on May 8, 1587, these pioneers of the "New World" were the third attempt by the English to settle the Roanoke area. These settlers became known as the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke. When she was nine days old, Governor White returned to England for supplies and support, but the Spanish Armada attack in 1588 delayed White's return to Roanoke. When the supply ship returned to the colony site three years later, August 18, 1590, Virginia's birthday, the only sign of the inhabitants was the word "Croatan" carved into a tree. No trace of the 117 colonists, including Virginia Dare, was ever found. Her birth was commemorated on the 1937 United States half-dollar, and a 1937 stamp commemorated the 350th anniversary of the Roanoke Colony and her birth. Virginia Dare has become an icon of the Outer Banks, and her birthday is celebrated every year at a festival on Roanoke Island. Many historians speculate, if the settlers lived, that they were absorbed into the friendly coastal Native American tribe of the Croatans, and a DNA project has been established to prove or disprove this reasoning. The tribe eventually became part of the Cherokee Nation with many migrating to the State of Georgia.