A new study in the journal Antiquity suggests the scandal of out-of-wedlock birth visited the well-to-do of the famous 17th century Jamestown colony in America.
And, it is the first time DNA has been used to successfully identify the remains of people buried for more than 300 years at the colony. The study focused on two graves and the skeletons they contained which were buried near the altar of the Jamestown church somewhere between 1608 and 1619. The site is located in what is today Williamsburg, Virginia.
Virginia was named after Queen Elizabeth I, the famous unmarried English queen known as the “Virgin Queen.”
By combining the results of DNA tests with church records and the prominent location of the burials—only high-status colonists would have been buried near the altar—researchers have determined the bodies belonged to Sir Fernando Wenman, and Captain William West. Wenman lived from 1576-1610, and West lived from 1586 to 1610. Both men were related to the family of the first governor of the colony, Thomas West.
But that’s not all. The DNA revealed that both men were related through the maternal line, suggesting something was not quite right. Well, it turns out that illegitimacy explains the relationship. Court records discovered by the team showed that Captain West was the bastard son of a woman named Elizabeth, who was unmarried and the daughter of the elder William West. Mary Blount, the younger West’s caretaker and guardian, apparently raised him instead of his biological mother Elizabeth, who was Mary’s sister.
The Jamestown colony was founded in 1607, and it was the first permanent colony planted in America by the British crown. Until the Virginia Colony relocated its capital to Williamsburg in 1699, Jamestown served as the capital.
Though out-of-wedlock-births have largely lost their taboo status in modern times, bearing a child outside marriage was severely frowned on in the 17th century, which probably explains why West’s real lineage was not formally recorded.
