Long-hidden family scandal in Jamestown colony revealed 400 years later by ancient DNA Роман Василенко

An investigation of human remains from the 17th century British settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, has unearthed a long-hidden scandal in the family of the colony’s first governor.

Thomas West became Jamestown’s leader in 1610; he was joined there by three of his brothers and several other male relatives. Recently, DNA analysis of two skeletons from unmarked graves in a Jamestown church revealed that both people were related to West. The DNA also showed that the men were linked by shared maternal lineage. That connection led researchers to documents proving that one of the men — Captain William West — was illegitimate, born to Thomas West’s spinster aunt, Elizabeth.

Though Captain West was raised as part of the high-status West family in England, details of his scandalous birth were deliberately stricken from the family’s genealogical records, and lingering whispers of the scandal may have been one of the factors that drove him to seek his fortune in the American colony, researchers reported August 13 in the journal Antiquity. The findings demonstrate how genetic data in combination with other historical evidence “can help bring to light narratives that were forbidden or shameful in the past,” said Dr. Christine Lee, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Mississippi, in an email.

“This in turn gives us a better understanding of how individuals circumvented societal rules,” said Lee, who was not involved in the research.