Lunch & Learn: Using DNA to People to Ironworkers at Catoctin Furnace

Learn about successful efforts to trace the ancestry of enslaved African Americans who worked at Catoctin Furnace iron foundry in Frederick County, which began operations in the 1770s, around the beginning of the American Revolution.

In 2015, the began a research and tourism project aimed at increasing public awareness of the role of enslaved African Americans in the iron industry. The project’s first phase involved forensic analyses of the human remains from the African American workers’ cemetery at the site. Later, DNA analysis provided data on ancestral origins of individuals in the cemetery. Ancient DNA analysis (aDNA) from bone or tooth samples collected from a selected subset of 28 individuals has assisted in determining the relationship between these historic remains and living population.

Cross-referencing this DNA with genetic information on modern-day genealogy websites, the project has been able to compare the DNA of African Americans who labored at Catoctin Furnace, Maryland during the late eighteenth to early centuries to that of more than nine million research participants in the 23andMe genetic database. The project has identified 41,799 modern relatives, including nearly 3,000 who are extremely close and include likely direct descendants. Research also made it possible to trace enslaved peoples’ origins in Africa. By sampling DNA from historical people with closer ties to Africa, the project showed that the enslaved workers at Catoctin derived from a small number of African groups, particularly the Wolof of West Africa and the Kongo of Central Africa.

This work helps to restore personal stories. Within the Catoctin African American cemetery, DNA helped identify five genetic families, primarily composed of mothers, children, and siblings who were buried close together.

Elizabeth Anderson Comer is an archaeologist who serves as the president of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc. and president of EAC/Archaeology, Inc. Ms. Comer has successfully managed more than 350 archival and archaeological survey, testing and excavation projects and historic architectural survey, evaluation and recordation. Ms. Comer graduated from Hood College with a B.A. in history and political science, and received her master’s degree from the University of Kansas in anthropology with a specialization in archaeology. She is ABD at the University of Maryland, currently completing her Ph.D. in American Studies with a concentration in archaeology. She has also studied at the University of London. As City Archaeologist for the City of Baltimore 1983-1987, she directed and managed the archaeological department for the city and specialized in complex urban, industrial and waterfront projects.

As secretary and now president of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc., Ms. Comer has led efforts restore the 1810 log collier’s house, the 1821 stone Forgeman’s house, the Museum of the Ironworker, the construction of an interpretative trail for the African-American cemetery, the purchase and establishment of the ca. 1820 Miller House as the innovative “Furnace Fellows” headquarters, and bio-archaeological research about the Catoctin Furnace population. She edited Catoctin Furnace: Portrait of an Iron-Making Village (2013), a meticulously researched and extensively referenced social, economic and technical history of Catoctin Furnace.

Ms. Comer serves as the co-principal investigator for the joint Smithsonian Institution/Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc. research project focusing on the remains of thirty-five individuals from the Catoctin Furnace slave cemetery. Ms. Comer has made more than 75 presentations to local, regional and national groups about the ongoing research at Catoctin Furnace including XRF, LIDAR, archaeology, oral history, historic clothing research, and historic foodways.

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ASL interpretation will be available for attendees.

Presented in partnership with The Maryland State Archives and The Maryland Four Centuries Project.

Host or Publisher Enoch Pratt Free Library