Ancient DNA Solves a 350-Year-Old Mystery Under a Colonial Maryland Chapel

Genetic testing has cracked open a centuries-old mystery buried beneath a colonial chapel in Maryland, identifying two long-lost colonial governors and connecting the settlement’s founders to more than 1.3 million living relatives. The findings come from a new study analysing the DNA of 49 people interred at St Mary’s City between 1634 and 1730.

St Mary’s City served as the capital of the British colony of Maryland from its founding in 1634, established by settlers fleeing religious persecution in England. The colonists built the Brick Chapel by 1667, and decades of excavation around the site have turned up dozens of burials, including three rare lead coffins. Published this week in the journal Current Biology, the study confirmed that Philip Calvert, Maryland’s fifth colonial governor, was buried there with his wife Anne Wolseley Calvert and an infant son.

Researchers also managed to identify Thomas Greene, the colony’s second governor, whose burial site had never been confirmed — matching his DNA against the 23andMe database and genealogical records in what researchers call one of the first instances of ancient DNA identifying a historical figure with no prior clues to their identity.

One burial stood apart: an 8-year-old boy of majority African ancestry, interred in a shroud and coffin beside the colony’s prominent English settlers. Isotope analysis showed he was born in America. Because enslaved people were typically buried separately during that era, while indentured servants and free colonists shared cemeteries, the boy’s English-style burial has led researchers to suggest he may not have been enslaved — though the boundary between indentured servitude and enslavement for African-descended people at the time was frequently blurred.

Most of the skeletons traced back to western England and Wales, consistent with historical settlement patterns. The study’s authors also found over 1.3 million living genetic relatives of the founding population by cross-referencing the ancient DNA with modern databases, with the largest single cluster — more than 200 people — tracing roots to Kentucky, tied to the postwar migration of Maryland’s Catholic families.