The exhumations, to be conducted at two Suffolk churches, are believed to be the first in which the Church of England has allowed archeologists to take DNA samples from graves.

The two people whose bones are to be sampled are relatives of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, an adventurer from Suffolk, whose remains researchers in Virginia believe they have discovered at the site of Jamestown. The settlement, established some 400 years ago, was the first permanent English presence in North America.

Gosnold, a one-time privateer, is credited with naming Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts after his daughter and naming Cape Cod.

Tomorrow, a team led by William Kelso, director of archeology at the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, will try to remove fragments of tooth or bone from the body of Elizabeth Tilney, Gosnold’s sister, who is believed to be buried under the floor of All Saints Church in Shelley, near Ipswich.

Samples are also to be taken from the body of Katherine Blackerby, Gosnold’s niece, who is thought to be buried under the floor of St Peter and St Mary Church in Stowmarket.

Kelso hopes to confirm that the Jamestown body — buried with an ornate military officer’s staff — is that of Gosnold by matching its DNA samples with those from Suffolk. He wants to see Gosnold recognised more widely for his role in the history of America.

Considered a leader of the expedition to found Jamestown, Gosnold commanded the Godspeed, one of the settlers’ three ships, and also designed the colony’s fort.

“He was trained in the law, he was an adventurer, very energetic, and he’d been a privateer. He had captured a Spanish galleon with a very valuable cargo,” said Kelso.

“Three months before he died he’d been in a fight with the Indians during the first attack on the settlement.”

Gosnold died of dysentery and scurvy at the age of 36 just months after he had landed at Jamestown Island in 1607. Two-thirds of the 104 colonists who arrived with him also died within months, but historians see the establishment of Jamestown as crucial in having prevented Spain from colonising North America and ensuring that English became the continent’s principal language. At that time, Spanish colonists were already entrenched in Florida.

Rather than being associated with Gosnold, the establishment of Jamestown is linked with his fellow leader, Captain John Smith, who was famously saved from execution through the intervention of Pocahontas, the daughter of the Indian chief Powhatan. The colony’s first president, Edward Wingfield, described Gosnold as a “worthy and religious gentleman” and he was given a hero’s funeral.

Church of England officials decided to approve the removal of the DNA because they regard the investigation as being of exceptional historical interest. Michael Eden, the vicar of St Peter and St Mary, said parishioners had been offered the chance to object to the exhumations but none had done so.

Nick Clarke, a spokesman for the diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, said: “It’s the first time church authorities and heritage bodies have given permission for an excavation for DNA material for a scientific project like this. Up to this point the only reason for excavation of bodies has usually been police investigations.”

Clarke added that the exhumations would not be a “rummage for bones” and that remote cameras and fibre-optic cables would be used to reduce disruption to the bodies.

The process of comparing the Suffolk DNA with the Jamestown bones, which will be undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

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