Hooper's Island in Dorchester County, Maryland, is one of the earliest areas settled in the middle colonies. It has been designated a Maryland Historic Treasure, with an active genealogical group currently hard at work preserving the Old Hooper's Island Graveyard. Isolated from the main shore, Hooper's Island families tended to intermarry among themselves, resulting in some very intricately joined family trees.
There is also the family tradition that one of the first settlers, surnamed Ruark, married an Indian woman.
This study will attemp to determine how the Hooper's Island families are related, and whether or not there is truth to the tradition that Hooper's Island natives are also descended from Native Americans.