DNA technology changes fast. These days Y-chromosome matches can also be done on bone and teeth - so assuming only establishing connections for common female relatives (from mitochondrial DNA) is not necessarily correct. The DNA professor in my program also tells me that there are new mini-kit gels that can establish a full DNA profile from increasingly shorter strands of DNA - in other words, from relatively degraded material.
Lyle, will contact you off list. May be able to help.
Melissa Connor, PhD
Director, Forensic Science Program
Nebraska Wesleyan University
5000 St. Paul Avenue
Lincoln, NE 68526
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 12:37 PM
Subject: Re: DNA Labs
Interesting. I assume you will only be able to establish connections for
common female relatives. Any chance of non-metric variability analysis?
Daniel B. Davis
Archaeologist Coordinator
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
Division of Environmental Analysis
200 Mero Street
Frankfort, KY 40622
(502) 564-7250
-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lyle
E. Browning
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 10:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: DNA Labs
It's a family cemetery with the first known burial in 1854 and the last
in 1912. The family knew of 9 definite burials and 1 probable.
We have 21. There were no gravestones, with the only marker a fence
around the perimeter. Among the other problems was that a family member
bought the property and put up a horsebarn partially over the family
cemetery, and later put a leanto addition wherein one of the posts
punched through a grave. A well respected funeral home searched for the
graveyard but could not find it as it was under concrete.
We have graves cutting other graves. The final insult to the graveyard
was that it was cleared by heavy equipment and only when parts of a cast
iron coffin and one burial were strewn across the landscape was the
location definitively known.
We have the 90 year old matriarch of the family as the oral historian
and a written family history that peripherally touches upon this branch.
This is not a 106 undertaking, but is treated as such under the
provisions of the Virginia Code that deals with the archaeological
exhumation of graves administered by the VA SHPO and also under the
provisions of a permit from SHPO.
The family has moved from opposition to testing to doing DNA to see if
the relationships can be established and then applied to the remains.
For instance, one 8 year old was listed and we have one set of remains
that corresponds to that age. We're doing tooth analysis (visual only)
as a means of providing some info as the family initially wished nothing
to be done except exhumation and reburial.
Their position has not moved to finding relationships. Bone preservation
was very poor and they were adamantly opposed to physical analysis.
Lyle Browning, RPA
On Dec 15, 2006, at 9:36 AM, Davis, Daniel (KYTC) wrote:
> If you are using DNA, I assume that you don't have headstones,
> documentary evidence, or oral history to pinpoint associations. Is
> this Section 106?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Lyle E. Browning
> Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 11:50 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: DNA Labs
>
> Can anyone recommend a DNA lab for establishing kinship among the
> folks in a small family graveyard (n=21)?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Lyle Browning, RPA
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