New research that combines technology to sequence “ancient DNA” with direct-to-consumer genetic testing has identified tens of thousands people alive today who are genetically linked to enslaved and free African Americans who worked at a once-thriving Maryland iron forge in the late 18th and early 19th century.
The findings, reported Thursday in Science, are a step toward restoring difficult-to-obtain ancestry knowledge to African Americans who descended from enslaved people, whose life histories, or even names, were rarely recorded. Prior to 1870, the U.S. Census did not list enslaved African Americans by name, leading many of their lineages to fall off what some call “an information cliff.”
“These people lived and died and no one wrote a word about them,” said Doug Owsley, a biological anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution who was part of the research team. “They are part of the American story, but you won’t find it in any history book.”
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