Suffolk tombs hold key to US founding father

[emad]

June 12, 2005


John Elliott

RESEARCHERS will take DNA samples from bodies in two 17th-century tombs in Britain tomorrow in an attempt to establish whether a skeleton found in America is that of one of the country’s first English settlers.

The exhumations, to be conducted at two Suffolk churches, are believed to be the first in which the Church of England has allowed archeologists to take DNA samples from graves.

The two people whose bones are to be sampled are relatives of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, an adventurer from Suffolk, whose remains researchers in Virginia believe they have discovered at the site of Jamestown. The settlement, established some 400 years ago, was the first permanent English presence in North America.

Gosnold, a one-time privateer, is credited with naming Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts after his daughter and naming Cape Cod.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1650821,00.html