She was the first child to be born in America of English parents. Her parents, Eleanor (Ellinor, Elyonor) and Ananias Dare, had been among the approximately 120 settlers who left England on 8 May, 1587, on an expedition sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh had intended that the settlement should be established in the Chesapeake Bay area, but the captain of their ship, the Lion, had his passengers land instead on Roanoke Island, the site of an unsuccessful earlier colonization venture.
Aside from the circumstances of her birth, Virginia Dare's life remains a mystery. Nine days after her birth, on 27 August, 1587, her grandfather, Governor John White, left the colony for England, acting as Roanoke's agent in obtaining further aid and assistance for the colony. He arrived in England that November as the nation was about to go to war with Spain. It was not until August 1590 that White reached Roanoke with a relief expedition. It found no trace of the settlers—only the word "croatoan" carved on a post. The infant Virginia Dare had vanished along with all the other Roanoke colonists. It is believed that what survivors of the "Lost Colony" there may have been were absorbed into the Croatan tribe.
The anti-immigration VDARE Project of the Center for American Unity is named after Virginia Dare.