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Harney É, Micheletti S, Bruwelheide KS, Freyman WA, Bryc K, Akbari A, Jewett E, Comer E, Louis Gates H, Heywood L, Thornton J, Curry R, Ancona Esselmann S, Barca KG, Sedig J, Sirak K, Olalde I, Adamski N, Bernardos R, Broomandkhoshbacht N, Ferry M, Qiu L, Stewardson K, Workman JN, Zalzala F, Mallick S, Micco A, Mah M, Zhang Z, Rohland N, Mountain JL, Owsley DW, Reich D. The genetic legacy of African Americans from Catoctin Furnace. Science 2023; 381:eade4995. [PMID: 37535739 PMCID: PMC10958645 DOI: 10.1126/science.ade4995] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2022] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 08/05/2023]
Abstract
Few African Americans have been able to trace family lineages back to ancestors who died before the 1870 United States Census, the first in which all Black people were listed by name. We analyzed 27 individuals from Maryland's Catoctin Furnace African American Cemetery (1774-1850), identifying 41,799 genetic relatives among consenting research participants in 23andMe, Inc.'s genetic database. One of the highest concentrations of close relatives is in Maryland, suggesting that descendants of the Catoctin individuals remain in the area. We find that many of the Catoctin individuals derived African ancestry from the Wolof or Kongo groups and European ancestry from Great Britain and Ireland. This study demonstrates the power of joint analysis of historical DNA and large datasets generated through direct-to-consumer ancestry testing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Éadaoin Harney
- 23andMe, Inc.; Sunnyvale, CA 94043, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
| | | | - Karin S. Bruwelheide
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Washington DC 20560, USA
| | | | | | - Ali Akbari
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | | | - Elizabeth Comer
- Catoctin Furnace Historical Society; Thurmont, MD, 21788, USA
| | - Henry Louis Gates
- Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Linda Heywood
- Department of History/African American Studies, Boston University; Brookline, MA 02446, USA
| | - John Thornton
- Department of History/African American Studies, Boston University; Brookline, MA 02446, USA
| | - Roslyn Curry
- 23andMe, Inc.; Sunnyvale, CA 94043, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
| | | | - Kathryn G. Barca
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Washington DC 20560, USA
| | - Jakob Sedig
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Kendra Sirak
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Iñigo Olalde
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- BIOMICs Research Group, Department of Zoology and Animal Cell Biology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
- Ikerbasque—Basque Foundation of Science, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Nicole Adamski
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Rebecca Bernardos
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Matthew Ferry
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Lijun Qiu
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Kristin Stewardson
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - J. Noah Workman
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Fatma Zalzala
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Shop Mallick
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Adam Micco
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Matthew Mah
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Zhao Zhang
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | | | - Nadin Rohland
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | | | - Douglas W. Owsley
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Washington DC 20560, USA
| | - David Reich
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
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Fleskes RE, Owsley DW, Bruwelheide KS, Barca KG, Griffith DR, Cabana GS, Schurr TG. Historical genomes elucidate European settlement and the African diaspora in Delaware. Curr Biol 2023:S0960-9822(23)00551-1. [PMID: 37207647 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2022] [Revised: 02/01/2023] [Accepted: 04/24/2023] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
The 17th-century colonization of North America brought thousands of Europeans to Indigenous lands in the Delaware region, which comprises the eastern boundary of the Chesapeake Bay in what is now the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.1 The demographic features of these initial colonial migrations are not uniformly characterized, with Europeans and European-Americans migrating to the Delaware area from other countries and neighboring colonies as single persons or in family units of free persons, indentured servants, or tenant farmers.2 European colonizers also instituted a system of racialized slavery through which they forcibly transported thousands of Africans to the Chesapeake region. Historical information about African-descended individuals in the Delaware region is limited, with a population estimate of less than 500 persons by 1700 CE.3,4 To shed light on the population histories of this period, we analyzed low-coverage genomes of 11 individuals from the Avery's Rest archaeological site (circa 1675-1725 CE), located in Delaware. Previous osteological and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence analyses showed a southern group of eight individuals of European maternal descent, buried 15-20 feet from a northern group of three individuals of African maternal descent.5 Autosomal results further illuminate genomic similarities to Northwestern European reference populations or West and West-Central African reference populations, respectively. We also identify three generations of maternal kin of European ancestry and a paternal parent-offspring relationship between an adult and child of African ancestry. These findings expand our understanding of the origins and familial relationships in late 17th and early 18th century North America.
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Affiliation(s)
- Raquel E Fleskes
- Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA; Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
| | - Douglas W Owsley
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
| | - Karin S Bruwelheide
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA
| | - Kathryn G Barca
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA
| | | | - Graciela S Cabana
- Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA; Molecular Anthropology Laboratories, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
| | - Theodore G Schurr
- Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
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