About 100 descendants of the two families are expected to attend the event.
"It's incredible how they matched the DNA to 17 descendants; the whole story is fascinating".
Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 41,000 descendants of the four Shoshone groups.
Indeed, some 50 descendants of Kaifeng's Jews are embracing this legacy and relearning Jewish ways.
They also approached a network of more than 50 descendants of Bowne.
Her relatives include 21 descendants of three of her half-siblings.
It spent more than $25,000 to cover travel costs for about 200 descendants of Monitor sailors to attend the ceremony.
Freedom Communications, based here, is owned by 43 descendants of the founder, R. C. Hoiles, a political conservative with a libertarian philosophical bent.
The two historians have so far interviewed more than 150 descendants for a documentary project about the lives of Monticello's slaves.
Relying on newspaper archives and government documents over the last two years, he found and interviewed more than 500 descendants of the letter writers.
