2023-08-10 12:15:04
The vast majority of black or African-American people living in the United States are descended from the hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans who were forcibly transported to the United States between 1501 and 1867.
However, due to centuries of inhumane treatment of enslaved families and their descendants, historical records often omit details about the lives of these people.
As a result, few contemporary African Americans have been able to trace family lineages back to their earliest enslaved ancestors in the United States.
Ancient DNA technologies have the potential to provide information about the identity of enslaved people and restore these lost family histories.
In a new study, Éadaoin Harney of Harvard University and colleagues analyzed the DNA of 27 colonial African-Americans buried in the Catoctin Furnace between 1774 and 1850. By comparing ancient, genome-wide DNA with data from more than 9.2 million participants in the 23andMe genetic database, the authors were able to establish identical-by-descent (IBD) connections between current and historical people.
Part of the ruins of Catoctin Furnace. (Photo: Tourism Council of Frederick County, Inc)
In addition to revealing five biological family groups among Catoctin individuals, Harney and colleagues’ IBD-based approach identified 41,799 modern genetic relatives living throughout the United States.
One of the highest concentrations of close relatives of Catoctin remains in Maryland.
Furthermore, the findings show that Catoctin individuals are more closely related to a small number of African groups, primarily the Wolof of West Africa and the Kongo of Central Africa.
The study is titled “The genetic legacy of African Americans from Catoctin Furnace”. And it has been published in the academic journal Science. (Source: AAAS)
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