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DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut

In 1990 in Griswold, Connecticut, archaeologists excavated a burial found in a “skull and crossbones” orientation. The lid of the 19th century coffin had brass tacks that spelled “JB55”, the initials of the person lying there and age at death. JB55 had evidence of chronic pulmonary infection, perhap...

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Autores principales: Daniels-Higginbotham, Jennifer, Gorden, Erin M., Farmer, Stephanie K., Spatola, Brian, Damann, Franklin, Bellantoni, Nicholas, Gagnon, Katie S., de la Puente, Maria, Xavier, Catarina, Walsh, Susan, Parson, Walther, McMahon, Timothy P., Marshall, Charla
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6769528/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31443502
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes10090636
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author Daniels-Higginbotham, Jennifer
Gorden, Erin M.
Farmer, Stephanie K.
Spatola, Brian
Damann, Franklin
Bellantoni, Nicholas
Gagnon, Katie S.
de la Puente, Maria
Xavier, Catarina
Walsh, Susan
Parson, Walther
McMahon, Timothy P.
Marshall, Charla
author_facet Daniels-Higginbotham, Jennifer
Gorden, Erin M.
Farmer, Stephanie K.
Spatola, Brian
Damann, Franklin
Bellantoni, Nicholas
Gagnon, Katie S.
de la Puente, Maria
Xavier, Catarina
Walsh, Susan
Parson, Walther
McMahon, Timothy P.
Marshall, Charla
author_sort Daniels-Higginbotham, Jennifer
collection PubMed
description In 1990 in Griswold, Connecticut, archaeologists excavated a burial found in a “skull and crossbones” orientation. The lid of the 19th century coffin had brass tacks that spelled “JB55”, the initials of the person lying there and age at death. JB55 had evidence of chronic pulmonary infection, perhaps tuberculosis. It is possible that JB55 was deemed a vampire due to his disease, and therefore had to be “killed” by mutilating his corpse. In an attempt to reveal the identity of JB55, DNA testing was performed. Ancestry informative single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis using the Precision ID Ancestry Panel indicated European ancestry. A full Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (Y-STR) profile was obtained, belonging to haplogroup R1b. When the Y-STR profile was searched in the publicly accessible FamilyTreeDNA R1b Project website, the two closest matches had the surname “Barber”. A search of historical records led to a death notice mentioning John Barber, whose son Nathan Barber was buried in Griswold in 1826. The description of Nathan Barber closely fits the burial of “NB13,” found near JB55. By applying modern forensic DNA tools to a historical mystery, the identity of JB55 as John Barber, the 19th century Connecticut vampire, has been revealed.
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spelling pubmed-67695282019-10-30 DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut Daniels-Higginbotham, Jennifer Gorden, Erin M. Farmer, Stephanie K. Spatola, Brian Damann, Franklin Bellantoni, Nicholas Gagnon, Katie S. de la Puente, Maria Xavier, Catarina Walsh, Susan Parson, Walther McMahon, Timothy P. Marshall, Charla Genes (Basel) Article In 1990 in Griswold, Connecticut, archaeologists excavated a burial found in a “skull and crossbones” orientation. The lid of the 19th century coffin had brass tacks that spelled “JB55”, the initials of the person lying there and age at death. JB55 had evidence of chronic pulmonary infection, perhaps tuberculosis. It is possible that JB55 was deemed a vampire due to his disease, and therefore had to be “killed” by mutilating his corpse. In an attempt to reveal the identity of JB55, DNA testing was performed. Ancestry informative single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis using the Precision ID Ancestry Panel indicated European ancestry. A full Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (Y-STR) profile was obtained, belonging to haplogroup R1b. When the Y-STR profile was searched in the publicly accessible FamilyTreeDNA R1b Project website, the two closest matches had the surname “Barber”. A search of historical records led to a death notice mentioning John Barber, whose son Nathan Barber was buried in Griswold in 1826. The description of Nathan Barber closely fits the burial of “NB13,” found near JB55. By applying modern forensic DNA tools to a historical mystery, the identity of JB55 as John Barber, the 19th century Connecticut vampire, has been revealed. MDPI 2019-08-22 /pmc/articles/PMC6769528/ /pubmed/31443502 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes10090636 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Daniels-Higginbotham, Jennifer
Gorden, Erin M.
Farmer, Stephanie K.
Spatola, Brian
Damann, Franklin
Bellantoni, Nicholas
Gagnon, Katie S.
de la Puente, Maria
Xavier, Catarina
Walsh, Susan
Parson, Walther
McMahon, Timothy P.
Marshall, Charla
DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut
title DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut
title_full DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut
title_fullStr DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut
title_full_unstemmed DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut
title_short DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut
title_sort dna testing reveals the putative identity of jb55, a 19th century vampire buried in griswold, connecticut
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6769528/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31443502
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes10090636
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