Jamestown predated Plymouth Plantation as the first continuous English settlement in North America. However, due to poor planning, disease, and conflict with Native populations, it almost did not survive. Much of the story at the beginning of the colony has come down to us in a mythologized form. While there is some truth behind the stories, things are always more complicated in real life. However, John Smith and Pocahontas were real people, and she apparently did save his life a couple of times.
One reason the colony at Jamestown almost failed was because the colonists came to find gold. They were not prepared to actually do the work necessary to build decent shelters or plant crops. Unlike the future settlers at Plymouth, they were not necessarily planning to stay; they planned to get their riches and go back to England. It was assumed that, much like the Native cultures the Spanish had conquered to the south, the Natives in the area that would become Virginia would have lots of gold, just lying around. It seems to have taken the English a while to wrap their heads around the fact that this was not the case.
Relations between the Natives and the English were somewhat fluid. Much depended on who was leading the English at the time. John Smith seemed to manage well, but others were either too trusting or too belligerent. It also depended on each individual tribe, and their leaders. The various tribes had complex relationships with each other that predated the arrival of the Jamestown settlers. Some tribes saw the settlers as an annoyance, and would have been happy to get rid of them. Some considered allying with them in order to gain the upper hand in negotiations with other tribes. And a specific tribe’s feelings about the settlers was not necessarily constant over time.
If this was your family, how would you research them? The website Virtual Jamestown, http://www.virtualjamestown.org/page2.html, has a lot of resources. You can see if you ancestor went to Jamestown as an indentured servant, for example. There is also the Jamestowne Society, https://www.jamestowne.org/, which you are eligible to join if you can prove descent from an early settler. They have a long list of names of settlers, and if your ancestor is one of them, you might qualify for membership.