Plate Nº 20 · recorded September 29, 2026
Earth & ClimateReported finding
DNA Reveals Identities of Four Sailors Lost on Franklin's Arctic Expedition
DNA from living descendants has identified four sailors from the doomed 1845 Franklin expedition, ending a 166-year mystery over a body found with cryptic documents.
By James Calloway4 min read807 words
In brief
- DNA matching with living descendants identified four Franklin expedition sailors: Harry Peglar, William Orren, David Young, and John Bridgens, bringing the DNA-identified total to six.
- Peglar's identity had been uncertain since 1859 because the body carried his documents but wore clothing that did not match his rank.
- All four newly identified men survived the expedition's first three years and died during or after the April 1848 escape attempt, when 105 crew abandoned the ice-trapped ships; their remains show no evidence of cannibalism.
Researchers have identified four more sailors from Sir John Franklin's ill-fated 1845 Arctic expedition, including one man whose identity had remained uncertain for more than a century. The team, led by anthropologists from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo, compared DNA recovered from skeletal remains with samples from living descendants. The four new matches raise the number of Franklin expedition sailors identified through DNA to six.
A Fatal Escape Across the Ice
The story behind the remains is grim. By April 1848, Franklin's two ships, Erebus and Terror, had been trapped in Arctic ice for nearly two years. The 105 surviving crew members abandoned the vessels and began a desperate attempt to reach safety, hauling boats on sleds along the west coast of King William Island, Nunavut. None survived the journey.
Since the mid-19th century, searchers have discovered expedition remains on King William Island and the Adelaide Peninsula. The latest identifications add detail to what happened during the expedition's final stages — and resolve a mystery that has puzzled researchers since 1859.
"Three of the sailors we have identified are from HMS Erebus, and they all died at Erebus Bay. The fourth, the only sailor from the HMS Terror to be definitively identified by DNA analysis, was found 130 kilometers away," said Dr. Douglas Stenton, adjunct professor of anthropology at Waterloo.
The Sailor With the Papers
That distant sailor was Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop on HMS Terror. His identity had been in doubt since 1859, when a body was discovered carrying Peglar's personal documents. The clothing found with the remains did not match Peglar's rank, and the discrepancy fueled debate for generations.
"It was interesting to conclusively identify this sailor because the body was found with almost the only written documents from the expedition ever found," said Dr. Robert Park, professor of anthropology at Waterloo and Stenton's co-researcher.
Those documents, known as the "Peglar Papers," were found alongside Peglar's seaman's certificate. They contain poetry as well as passages that appear to describe events during the expedition.
Three More From HMS Erebus
The researchers also identified William Orren, Able Seaman; David Young, Boy 1st Class; and John Bridgens, Subordinate Officers' Steward. All three survived the expedition's first three years and joined the crew's final escape attempt after abandoning the trapped ships.
The findings build on earlier DNA work by the same team. In 2021, a descendant's DNA sample allowed researchers to identify John Gregory, engineer of HMS Erebus. In 2024, DNA identified James Fitzjames, the captain of Erebus; evidence from his remains showed his body had been subject to cannibalism. By contrast, the remains of the four sailors in the new research show no signs of cannibalism.
"For the living descendants, these findings provide previously unavailable details regarding the circumstances and locations of their relatives' deaths, as well as the identities of some of the shipmates who died with them," Stenton said.
A Journalist's Own Family Story
The research also produced a striking link to the present. Rich Preston, a BBC News journalist, turned out to be a descendant of John Bridgens.
"I was so intrigued when Dr. Stenton first contacted me, telling me about his work and asking if I'd be willing to provide a DNA sample," Preston said. "It was such a huge surprise to hear from the team that my DNA was a match with one of the sailors on the doomed Franklin expedition. I used to work on a genealogy show for the BBC that traced people's fascinating family stories, and so to discover that there's such an interesting tale in my own family's past feels very exciting."
How the Matching Works
Stephen Fratpietro, a study co-author from Lakehead University, extracted DNA from the archaeological remains. The team then compared it with mitochondrial DNA — the kind passed down through the maternal line — and Y-chromosome DNA, which follows the paternal line, supplied by descendants.
In each of the four cases, the researchers found a genetic distance of zero, meaning the genetic markers matched exactly. That result provides strong evidence that the remains and the living donors share a common ancestor.
Descendant DNA is now essential to identifying more of the expedition's dead. To qualify, descendants need genealogical records documenting a direct, uninterrupted maternal or paternal line. The researchers encourage other descendants of Franklin expedition members to contact them, since additional samples could help put names to more of the still-unidentified remains.
The findings appear in two papers: "DNA identifications of three 1845 Franklin expedition sailors from HMS Erebus," published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, and "'Some very hard ground to heave': DNA identification of Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop, HMS Terror," published in Polar Record.
via uwaterloo.ca (Original)
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