Unearthing who and Y at Harewood Cemetery and inference of George Washington's Y-chromosomal haplotype

Abstract

An excavation conducted at Harewood Cemetery to identify the unmarked grave of Samuel Washington resulted in the discovery of burials presumably belonging to George Washington’s paternal grandnephews and their mother, Lucy Payne. To confirm their identities this study examined Y-chromosomal, mitochondrial, and autosomal DNA from the burials and a living Washington descendant. The burial’s Y-STR profile was compared to FamilyTreeDNA’s database, which resulted in a one-step difference from the living descendant and an exact match to another Washington. A more complete Y-STR and Y-SNP profile from the descendant was inferred to be the Washington Y profile. Kinship comparisons performed in relation to the descendant, who is a 4th and 5th degree relative of the putative individuals, resulted in >37,000 overlapping autosomal SNPs and strong statistical support with likelihood ratios exceeding one billion. This study highlights the benefits of a multi-marker approach for kinship prediction and DNA-assisted identification of historical remains. Subject areas: Bioinformatics, Human genetics