A study published in Current Biology traced the genetic legacy of the first settlers of St. Mary’s City, the colonial capital founded in 1634. For the first time, ancient DNA allowed researchers to identify three individuals whose names had vanished from the historical record.
In 1634, two ships — the Ark and the Dove — set sail from the Isle of Wight carrying a small company of English and Irish colonists toward the shores of southern Maryland. Many came seeking religious freedom; others arrived as indentured servants. Most died without their names ever being recorded in any archive. Nearly four centuries later, their bones have found a voice.
A team of researchers from the 23andMe Research Institute, Harvard University, and the Smithsonian Institution analyzed DNA from 49 individuals buried in the Chapel Field cemetery in St. Mary’s City between 1634 and 1730.
The results, published this week in Current Biology, reveal that more than 1.3 million living people are genetic relatives of the settlers of St. Mary’s City. The study’s reach extends further still: it proposes the identity of the colony’s second governor, Thomas Greene (1609–1651), whose remains had gone unidentified until now.
St. Mary’s City: A Fleeting Capital With a Lasting Legacy
Founded in 1634, St. Mary’s City was the first English colony in Maryland, established by George Calvert, the first Baron Baltimore, as both a proprietary colony of the Crown and a haven of religious freedom — particularly for persecuted Catholics.
Its tenure as a capital was brief. In 1695, the seat of government moved to what is now Annapolis. But the Brick Chapel cemetery continued to receive burials for nearly a century afterward. Unknowingly, those left behind preserved one of the most extraordinary genealogies in American history.
The research began with the 1986 excavation of three lead coffins found beneath the chapel floor. Those caskets held the remains of Philip Calvert — the colony’s fifth governor — his first wife, Anne Wolseley Calvert, and a child confirmed through genetic analysis to be the product of Philip’s second marriage.
Using those three individuals as a reference point, researchers cross-referenced their DNA against that of the other 46 colonists buried in the same cemetery.
11.5 Million Genetic Profiles and a Traceable Migration
By comparing the DNA of the colonists with that of more than 11.5 million participants in the 23andMe database who had consented to take part in research, the team traced the geographic origins of these founders and charted how their descendants spread across the continent.
The strongest genetic matches were among participants with ancestry from western England and Wales. Several of the colonists showed closer genetic ties to Ireland, consistent with historical records documenting the presence of Irish settlers in the colony’s earliest years.
One of the study’s clearest findings was the genetic confirmation of a migration previously documented only in written records. After the Revolutionary War, many Catholic families from St. Mary’s County faced economic hardship and religious discrimination, triggering a wave of migration to Kentucky, primarily between 1780 and 1820.
Those settlers concentrated mainly in what are now Nelson and Washington counties. When the team mapped which 23andMe participants shared the closest genetic connections to the St. Mary’s City individuals, they found a significant cluster in Louisville, Kentucky.
Families Recovered, a Governor Identified
Among the 49 individuals analyzed, researchers identified family relationships across five distinct groups, one of which spanned three generations.
The most innovative aspect of the work, however, was the method used to identify the unnamed dead. The team invited 23andMe participants who showed the closest genetic ties to three closely related remains to contribute information from their own family trees.
Researchers then searched for names that appeared across multiple genealogies and combined that data with archaeological, historical, and osteological evidence. The evidence converged on a single colonial family: Governor Thomas Greene, his first wife Anne, and their son Leonard.
“This is the first time that ancient DNA has been used to help identify unknown individuals without any prior knowledge of who they might have been. And it turns out that one of those individuals was one of the most prominent figures in colonial Maryland,” said Éadaoin Harney, a senior scientist at the 23andMe Research Institute.
A Method That Changes How We Read the Past
David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the study, noted that the work demonstrates the value of ancient DNA in filling gaps that written archives alone cannot close. “The written records are extraordinarily rich, but genetic data can continue to fill in the gaps of that record and yield surprises.”
The approach pioneered at St. Mary’s City is the first to unite ancient genomics, modern genealogy, archaeology, and history in a single analytical effort. Its potential to identify unknown historical individuals — with no prior clues about who they were — opens a door that simply did not exist before.
Four hundred years after the Ark and the Dove made landfall in Maryland, the names of those who sailed aboard are still coming to light — not from the archives, but from their bones.
