Wikimedia CommonsJohn White’s depiction of his 1590 expedition to Roanoke Island ... after all its residents mysteriously vanished in 1590. The missing settlers left behind only two clues ...

Just outside North Carolina's Outer Banks is Roanoke Island, the scene of one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in U.S. history: the disappearance of an entire colony of English settlers.

The settlers disappeared without a trace and are sometimes ... women and children who sailed from England to Roanoke Island in May of 1587. Virginia Dare was born here on Aug. 18, 1587, the ...

Extracting DNA from 16th-century bones on Roanoke Island, Hatteras, or at Site X could provide a reliable link between the settlers and their descendants, but that genetic material remains elusive.