Charles Weer Goff, orthopedic surgeon, anatomist, and archeologist, was born inIllinois in 1897. After completion of medical school at the University of Illinois in 1923, he moved to Connecticut to begin a long and distinguished medical career. He served as an orthopedic advisor to a number of hospitals in New Haven and Hartford Counties and was a member of the clinical faculty at Yale School of Medicine until his retirement in 1965. In 1945 Goff began archeological investigations on the indigenous peoples of Central and South America, and later on the location of Christopher Columbus's remains. Combining his orthopedic, forensic, and archeological expertise, he claimed to have proven, by means of analysis of osseous remains in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), that the explorer's remains are located in a church in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and that the body in the famous Tomb of Columbus in Seville, Spain is actually that of his son, Diego. Goff died in 1975.

The collection, divided into four series, includes correspondence between Goff and colleagues (including Ambassador J. Inchaustegui Cabral and Otto Pikaza), drafts of lectures and papers, historical notes, clippings, photos of burial sites and of the examination of artifacts in Santo Domingo, and the film "Perception," an interview of Goff on the remains of Columbus. Topics covered in the collection include the general history of Columbus, the history of Columbus' remains, probable causes of his death including syphilis, paraplegia and gout, and anthropological and archaeological techniques of dating and blood-typing remains.