DNA identifies four more crew members of doomed Franklin expedition

Archaeologists led the expedition of Captain Sir John S. DNA analysis continues to be used to identify recovered remains of members of the doomed crew of Franklin’s 1846 Arctic expedition. They can now add four more names to the list of already identified crew members. The findings were reported in two papers, one published in the Journal of Archaeological Science and the other in Polar Record.

As we mentioned earlier, Franklin’s two ships, H.M.S. Erebus and hms terrorThe ship froze to death in the Victoria Strait, ultimately killing all 129 crew members. It has been an enduring mystery that has captured imaginations ever since. The expedition departed on May 19, 1845, and was last sighted in Baffin Bay in July 1845 by the captains of two whaling ships. Historians have compiled a fairly reliable account of what happened: the crew spent the winter of 1845–1846 on Beachy Island, where the graves of three crew members were found.

When the weather cleared, the expedition moved into the Victoria Strait before becoming trapped in ice near King William Island in September 1846. According to a surviving note signed by Fitzjames the following April, Franklin died on June 11, 1847. HMS Erebus After Franklin’s death Captain James FitzJames assumed overall command, leaving 105 survivors from his ice-trapped ships. It is believed that everyone else died while camping for the winter or attempting to get back to civilization.

There was no concrete news about the expedition’s fate until 1854, when local Inuits told 19th-century Scottish explorer John Rae that they had seen about 40 people pulling a ship’s boat on a sledge along the southern coast. The following year, several bodies were found. A second search in 1859 discovered a location about 80 kilometers south of that location, called Erebus Bay, along with several more bodies and one of the ship’s boats still on the sled. In 1861, another site only 2 kilometers away was found with even more bodies. When those two sites were rediscovered in the 1990s, archaeologists designated them NgLj-3 and NgLj-2, respectively.

Original Shipwrecks of HMS Erebus and hms terror Did not meet until 2014 and 2016 respectively. The ship and its contents were in remarkably good condition due to the cool water temperatures, lack of natural light, and layers of silt covering many of the artifacts. Even some of the window panes were still intact. The first underwater images and footage showing the ships’ exterior and interior were released in 2019.

it’s in the dna

For several years, scientists have been conducting DNA research by comparing the DNA profiles of the remains with samples taken from descendants of expedition members to identify the remains found at these sites. Approximately 46 archaeological samples (bone, teeth or hair) from Franklin Expedition-related sites on King William Island have been genetically profiled and compared to cheek swab samples from 25 descendant donors. Most did not match, but in 2021, they identified one of the bodies as that of John Gregory, the chief engineer who worked on Erebus.

By 2024, the team had added four more descendant donors – one related to Fitzjames (technically a second cousin five times removed through the captain’s great-grandfather). In the same year, DNA analysis revealed that a tooth recovered from a mandible at one of the relevant archaeological sites belonged to Captain James FitzJames of H.M.S. Erebus. Their remains showed clear signs of cannibalism, confirming early Inuit reports that desperate crew members had resorted to eating their dead.

We can now add three more crew members identified through their DNA. As before, to make identification, the team extracted DNA from archaeological samples and compared it to the descendants’ mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA. These included molars and humerus shafts from NgLj-3; Two molars, a premolar and a temporal cranial bone from NgLj-2; and a specimen taken from a left humerus found at NgLj-1 in 2018. Researchers were able to identify three individuals: William Oren, able seaman; David Young, first class boy; and John Bridgens, manager of subordinate officers. all served on HMS ErebusAnd they all died in the Erebus Bay.