By Sara Whitford
I have been asked this, and similar questions, multiple times over the years because of my connection with Coastal Carolina Indian Center, as well as my role as the Group Administrator for the East Carolina Roots DNA Project. I figured it was finally time to write a post about it for anyone who is interested.
It is a question I always have to answer with a question:
“How can one match DNA to the Lost Colonists, or even the Indians of Croatoan, definitively, considering there are no genetic samples from which a contemporary subject’s results could be compared?”
Let me explain the simplest reasons first, and then we’ll get into the more complex reasons later.
- As of this writing in January of 2012, the Lost Colonists have never been found (hence the term “Lost”). They also never left genealogical records of their descendants.
- The probability of finding the remains any of the Lost Colonists seems slim (not to mention grim), and the likelihood of finding them all buried together is even less likely.
- Even if their graves ever were found, the surnames associated with the colonists are almost all very common 16th century English surnames, so the legal hurdles to allow DNA testing against the remains would be exceedingly high. (And that’s to say nothing of the likelihood of any of them being buried amongst the Indians with whom they almost certainly intermarried and settled, and the protections that NAGPRA would offer to such remains.)
- Because there are no identifiable descendants (via a genealogical paper trail) of the Lost Colonists, or the Indians of Roanoke, Croatoan, or the surrounding areas from the 16th century, how could one prove descent from them to give the probable cause necessary for a DNA test? [That's not to say that both the colonists and the Indians don't have plenty of descendants who are alive and well and living in eastern North Carolina, and even around the country, to this day, but there is no way to establish a definitive genetic line of descent from Indians or Lost Colonists who left no paper trail of specific genealogies, and whose remains have never been found for testing.]
On one of the FAQ pages of the website for the Lost Colony Research Group, it says:
Many people are interested in joining the project to compare their DNA to that of the colonists. Plain and simple, we don’t have the DNA of the colonists yet, or if we do, we don’t yet have the documentation to prove it.
We have established three different projects, each with its own special focus, to help us in our quest to find the colonists.
First of all, I’m just not sure what they mean when they say, “or if we do, we don’t yet have the documentation to prove it.” Does that mean they have human remains and that they’re attempting to do DNA testing on them? Or are they referring to their own project members for whom they can establish no provable connection to the Lost Colonists because of [Continue reading…]
