Lost Lives, New Voices

In November 2013 two mass burials were discovered unexpectedly on a construction site in the city of Durham in north-east England. Over the next 2 years, a complex jigsaw of evidence was pieced together by a team of archaeologists to establish the identity of the human remains. Today we know them to be some of the Scottish prisoners who died in the autumn of 1650 in Durham cathedral and castle following the battle of Dunbar on the south-east coast of Scotland. Fought between the English and the Scots, this was one of the key engagements of the War of the Three Kingdoms.

Using the latest techniques of skeleton science, this book gives back to the men a voice through an understanding of their childhood and later lives, tracing the story not only of the men who died through the course of research but also of those who survived. Archaeological and historical evidence allows us to reconstruct with vivid accuracy how and why these men vanished off the historical radar.

Of the prisoners who survived, about 150 were transported to the colonies. Following the trail of their biographies takes us across the Atlantic to the frontiers of New England. An extensive genealogical appendix traces what is known of the later lives of the Dunbar men, through extensive 17th century records including wills, inventories and employment records, examined by their modern-day descendants in collaboration with project historians. The names of just about all the transported men have been established with varying degrees of accuracy and for each there is an entry composed of surname and forenames, residences listed by state, date of first known appearance in New England records, years of birth and death, based on evidence contemporary with the man, together with notes on his later life, employment, family history and decadency, sometimes down to the present day.

Iron- and sawmill workers, farmers and fishermen adapted to a new life in the vast forested landscapes. Some flourished, others did not but none returned to the country of their birth. Lost Lives, New Voices continues a forgotten narrative, interrupted for over 350 years, from a distant Scottish battlefield to the New England of modern America.