It's one of the most haunting and tantalizing mysteries in American folklore.

    The 115 souls who in 1587 constituted the first English attempt at a permanent colony in the New World, on Roanoke Island, N.C., disappeared within three years' time, leaving scarcely a trace.

    Archaeologists, historians and scholars have been trying for years to determine what became of the members of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, to little avail. Now, a Brighton area DNA expert may hold the key to unraveling the 400-year-old mystery.

    Robert Estes, owner of DNA Explain, a private DNA analysis company, is managing a multidisciplinary project, incorporating DNA tracking, geography, geology, history, biology, anthropology and oceanography to track possible descendants of those lost colonists.

    "The question we're setting out to solve is, 'Did any of the colonists survive?'" said Estes, who directs DNA research for the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research in Martin County, N.C. The center's primary mission is to determine the fate of the Lost Colony by funding continued research into the mystery.

    Some researchers believe all the colonists perished, while others believe they were assimilated into friendly Native American tribes in the area. Others believe the truth is a combination of those two theories.

    "One account says colonists were taken as slaves by Indians," Estes said. She and her colleagues at the Lost Colony Center believe they can ferret out the real story using DNA comparisons. The project will test the DNA of people who have similar or the same last names as the colonists or those on a list who had land patents or deeds in the Roanoke Island area, and also people who are known to descend from any of the Native American tribes in the area. The DNA test results, in combination with genealogical and historical information, are "the only way to trace whether any of them survived," Estes said.

    Armed with bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science, 30 years' experience in genealogy and six years in DNA-genomics (the study of the DNA in the human genetic structure), Estes is working with researchers at the Lost Colony Center to look for matches between the DNA of interested participants and the DNA of families known to be related to the Lost Colonists.

    "We're bringing real hard science to bear here," said Fred Willard, director of the Lost Colony Center, who said he is positive that this line of investigation will solve the mystery. "We'll just fall over and drop dead if we don't nail it," he said.

    Willard said the evidence strongly points to the colonists assimilating with the Croatan Indians, who later became the Hatteras Indians and later, the Mattamuskeet. In fact, one of the few clues to the colony's fate is the word, "Croatan," carved into a post of the fort that sheltered the colony.

    Because of the North American penchant for migration, likely participants do not necessarily live in the Roanoke Island area, Estes said. In fact, in response to an inquiry she put out on RootsWeb.com, a well-used genealogical Internet site, she has had more than 3,000 responses, from all over North America and even some foreign countries. "I had no concept of the magnitude of this," she said.

    In fact, her year-old company, DNA Explain, helps people understand what DNA test results - which are generally provided as a series of seemingly meaningless numbers - actually mean and how they are derived.

    "I started the company because I found I was spending hours explaining the results of these tests to friends and family and thought, why not help more people - and get paid for it?"

    The testing itself - done through Family Tree DNA, the world's largest genealogy-driven DNA testing service - is done by means of cheek swabs to test for paternal and maternal DNA. There is a fee for the tests, the amount depending on how many markers, or points of comparison, are tested.

    Information on testing - and a list of surnames from the Lost Colony, as well as detailed information about it - is available at the center's Web site at www.lost-colony.com.