WASHINGTON, D.C.—According to a Newsweek report, the DNA of two individuals who were buried in places of honor in the chancel of the 1608 church at Jamestown has been analyzed by a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard Medical School, and Jamestown Rediscovery. The two men, identified in 2013 through osteological and archaeological analysis, are believed to be Sir Ferdinando Wainman (1576–1610) and Captain William West (ca. 1586–1610). Both men were referred to in historical documents as kinsmen of Thomas West, Third Baron De La Warr, who was the Virginia colony’s first governor. First, the scientists compared the poorly preserved DNA of Captain William West and Sir Ferdinando Wainman, whose genealogy is well documented and shows that he was a cousin of Thomas West. Yet the analysis indicated that the two men were related through the maternal line, and did not share a recent paternal ancestor. It had been previously thought that they were related through the paternal line to William West, the First Baron De La Warr. A review of court records revealed that young William West had been raised by his aunt, Mary Blount, on behalf of her deceased unmarried sister, Elizabeth West. Both women were the daughters of the First Baron De La Warr. Mary Blount went to court in an effort to recover her sister’s jewelry, which Elizabeth had left for the care of young William. The jewelry, however, had been claimed by their father’s second wife. The researchers therefore suggest that Captain William West was Elizabeth’s illegitimate son, thus explaining the lack of records regarding his birth and his departure from England. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read more about these burials, go to "Jamestown's VIPs," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2015.
