Posted on 01/31/2005 1:17:14 PM PST by Pharmboy
JAMESTOWN, Va. (AP) - The Church of England has agreed to allow researchers using radar to look beneath two churches for remains that could determine whether a skeleton found at Jamestown is that of one of the colony's founders, scientists said Monday. Scientists who excavated the site of a 400-year-old fort at Jamestown want to know whether a skeleton discovered there in 2003 is that of Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, captain of one of the three ships that carried settlers from England.
To do so, they need to find the graves of Gosnold's sister and niece, who were buried in two churches in Suffolk, England, and conduct DNA analysis. The Church of England, which owns the sites, has agreed to allow a ground-radar survey of the graves.
If they find remains, the researchers will need permission to take bits of teeth or bone to verify whether the women's DNA matches that of the Jamestown skeleton.
Gosnold has been largely unrecognized by historians, who relied instead on written accounts by other settlers, notably Capt. John Smith. Gosnold, a former privateer, also discovered and named Massachusetts' Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard in 1602.
A Kennedy Ancestor?......
Could be--after all, he was a privateer.
Not a bad observation. This guy sounds like he was more at home asea...
"Gosnold has been largely unrecognized by historians." That's because he wore a disguise.
Jamestown sort of faded, just as the gallant few braved that terrible winter near Plymouth Rock, made their final home in America. Better get the PC screamers out,surely they might denigrate the early settlers. Still, of great interest to certain of us. Always fancied being a swashbuckling privateer myself. LOL
As someone whose heritage dates back to Williamsburg, I thought I'd ping you to this. Might be interesting for some other Anglican-Episcopal readers.
St. Augustine, FL, goes back even earlier than Jamestown or Plymouth, although it wasn't an English settlement...and Quebec is older than Plymouth, and still inhabited (founded a year after Jamestown) but not part of the U.S. thanks to the failure of Richard Montgomery & Benedict Arnold's campaign.
Perhaps a little bit of delving into the past, of course- why not? Just needs an excuse, more power to these historical researchers.
As I understood it, Jamestown was built in a swamp, and the mosquitoes and other pests were more than the settlers could endure.
If they don't know where the graves of the sister and niece are . . . other than in a particular churchyard . . . how are they going to verify that they have the right DNA to compare with Gosnold? If they don't have headstones it's like the proverbial needle in the haystack, because most old English churches have layers and layers and layers of graves in the ground. Nobody was very careful about disturbing hundred-year-old remains, especially if no headstone was set or it was lost in the intervening years.
I can think of at least two English paintings of gravediggers or graves showing miscellaneous old bones falling out of the new grave.
H.A. Bowler, The Doubt - Can These Dry Bones Live?
J.E. Millais, The Vale of Rest
Yes...good points. Perhaps these church graveyards were better preserved than others. They must have SOMETHING to go on. Or, maybe you are right and it is no more than a fishing expedition.
Even very recent American graveyards rarely have a grave-by-grave roster, let alone a map. Sometimes a local genealogist will prepare a roster, but the directions are still very general - e.g. in one of the better-recorded cemeteries I've been in, Magnolia in Augusta, GA, the office has file cards on each burial, with directions like "across 3rd street, near west wall." Heaven help you if there's no stone. I was never able to locate my gg grandmother's first husband - I got into the general area but couldn't narrow it down any smaller than a 30 by 30 foot area because there was no headstone and no record of one.
It just sounds like a fishing expedition to me, because if there were gravestones, they surely would have known where to dig!
Yours is an interesting perspective from actually doing the research...that's why I love FR: I always learn something.
You'll find an expert in almost anything around FR - and a whole bunch of folks who SAY they're experts . . . I'm no expert genealogist, I just play at it. But I've spent a lot of time in old graveyards -- my 16 year old daughter's earliest memories involve playing with her stuffed animals on a blanket spread over an old-fashioned flat gravestone while I did inscription rubbings . . . :-D
In olde England as a child, I loved the peace of the grave yards. I imagined the life that was lived in front of me. The oft used epitaph always caused a chuckle (then).
"As you pass by. Think of me. Where I am now. So one day You shall be" RIP.
Lots of University people etc with all kinds of missions these days. 'Er, was Cleopatra really bitten by an asp. 'Er did the English give arsenic to Napoleon- let's find out. See it live on T/V. (Lots of grant money bless them).
Jamestown basically was a bunch of dandies (and I think 1 or 2 women) on a business venture looking for gold.
Plymouth was made up of families escaping religious persecution. These folks were serious about making this settlement permanent, the guys in Jamestown weren't.
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