Monument record SHY 004 - Church of All Saints (Pmed)

2005: Research by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) at Jamestown in Virginia, USA, has identified an inhumation burial which has the potential to be that of Bartholomew Gosnold one of the leaders of the earliest permanent English settlement in the USA. A separate historical study defines the background and identifies the academic and educational benefits of confirming the identity of the burial. An investigation of the likely burial sites of two of Gosnold's female relatives in Shelley and Stowmarket churches has been proposed in order to provide suitable mt DNA links to achieve this objective. This work would be carried out in conjunction with the National Geographic Society (NGS) who intend to film the project.
At Shelly DNA samples were taken from the remains of Elizabeth Tilney nee Gosnold, Bartholomews sister buried in 1646 (S1).
Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2005 (S2).

2006: Following on from the excavation in Shelley Church in 2005 to recover samples from a body thought to be that of Elizabeth Tilney, further tests were carried out to compare the teeth of that body with those of a body excavated in 2003 in Jamestown, Virginia, thought to be her brother, the American settler Bartholomew Gosnold. This involved a comparison of the strontium and oxygen isotope composition of the tooth enamel of both bodies. The oxygen isotope data is in broad agreement that these two individuals came from the warmer, i.e. southern, parts of Britain. The strontium isotope data from the two individuals is, however, not consistent with their have been raised under the same conditions, specifically with the same diet at the time of formation of their teeth. The Shelley body could be reasonably assigned to a person brought up on a chalk-dominated terrain, the Jamestown body cannot, its tooth enamel is too radiogenic. The Jamestown body’s strontium values are typical of many of the non-chalky deposits in south-east England. Otley in south-east Suffolk, where Bartholomew and Elizabeth are likely to have been brought up, is situated on chalky glacial till, which would match the results from the Shelley body. There are deposits south of Otley that could have engendered the Jamestown body’s strontium ‘signature’ however they lie outside the areas where Anthony Gosnold (Bartholomew and Elizabeth’s father) is recorded as living. Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2006 (S3).