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mtDNA Solves Another History Mystery

Both The Genealogue and Genetic Genealogist have already blogged this, but I just have to jump in here and say what a cool story this is. Those who are familiar with mtDNA know that it's used on a regular basis to tackle history mysteries -- the Romanovs, the Titanic baby, unidentified soldiers, and so forth.

And today's Washington Post has a great tale involving a 150+ year old tomb accidentally uncovered and the detective work done to identify the teenager found in the coffin.

The article tells of the false starts (research-wise) and final resolution, although my one concern is that it never addresses the limitations of mtDNA as an identification tool. Since the Smithsonian Institute is involved, I would assume that they took every precaution before reaching this conclusion, but just for my own sake of curiosity, I wish they had delved a little more deeply into the specifics of the DNA testing involved. And I think it would have been kind of the writer to give a shout-out to the anonymous genealogist who helped the researchers get back on the right path. Regardless, it's a great genealogical romp and you'll enjoy reading out it!

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on September 20, 2007 2:23 PM.

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