The Victims of Pompeii

When Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE it sealed Pompeii's people in ash mid-motion, and their plaster casts became antiquity's most haunting images. Genomes teased from the casts and skeletons rewrote the famous stories — a 'mother' cradling a child was an unrelated man — and showed a boisterously cosmopolitan port city, its citizens drawn from across the eastern Mediterranean.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in Ancient DNA from the people of Pompeii.

Every Ancestrify Global25 report includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances — that is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Victims of Pompeii are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about the full G25 analysis.

• 01

  Who were the Victims of Pompeii?

  The Victims of Pompeii (79 CE, Pompeii, Italy) are one of the Iconic discoveries entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 4 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "Ancient DNA from the people of Pompeii".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Victims of Pompeii mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported — a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

• 03

  Are they my ancestor?

  No — and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

• 04

  How do I see my own distance to the Victims of Pompeii?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestrify Global25 report — never sold separately. Order the G25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers — browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

• The Bog Army of Alken Engec. 100 BCE–150 CE

• The Durotriges of Dorsetc. 100 BCE–50 CE

• The Romans of Viminacium1st–6th century CE

• The People of Imperial Romec. 100–300 CE

• The Xiongnu Imperial Elitec. 100 BCE–100 CE

• The Romans of Docleac. 100–400 CE

• The Sarmatians of the Lower Danubec. 100–400 CE

• The Goths of the Vistulac. 100–400 CE

• The Greeks of Histria2nd–6th century CE

• The Balkan Celtsc. 300–50 BCE

• The Celts of the Cornaux Bridgec. 260–80 BCE

• The Chariot Riders of East Yorkshirec. 230–110 BCE