New research uncovers more details of doomed mission to find the Northwest Passage
Researchers have identified four more members of Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition, one of whom was the subject of great debate lasting for more than a century.
Anthropologists from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo led the work that analyzed DNA samples extracted from skeletal remains and found matches with DNA donated by living descendants. These new discoveries bring the total number of identified sailors of the Franklin expedition to six.
In April 1848, after the two Franklin expedition ships Erebus and Terror were frozen in Arctic ice for nearly two years, 105 survivors attempted to save themselves by walking and dragging boats on sleds along the west coast of King William Island, Nunavut. All 105 died trying to escape. Remains of expedition members have been found on King William Island and the Adelaide Peninsula since the mid-19th century.
The additional identifications deepen our understanding of events that occurred during the final stages of the Franklin expedition and solve a 166-year-old mystery about the identity of one of the sailors.
“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 kilometres away,” said Dr. Douglas Stenton, Adjunct Assistant Professor of anthropology at Waterloo.
That lone sailor was identified as Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop on HMS Terror. Peglar’s identification resolves confusion dating back to 1859 when a body was found carrying Peglar’s personal documents but wearing clothing that did not match his rank.
“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 co-researcher with Stenton. Dubbed the "Peglar Papers,” they were found with his seaman's certificate and included poetry and apparent descriptions of some events from the expedition.
The researchers identified the three other expedition members as William Orren, Able Seaman; David Young, Boy 1st Class; and John Bridgens, Subordinate Officers’ Steward.
Their identification confirms that the three were among the crew who survived the first three years of the expedition and attempted to escape the Arctic.
David Young, Boy 1st Class from the HMS Erebus, died at Erebus Bay. (2D Forensic Facial Reconstruction by Diana Trepkov, Investigative Forensic Artist).
These discoveries follow the identification of other members of the Franklin expedition that the research team made earlier. In 2021, they used DNA from a descendant to identify John Gregory, Engineer of HMS Erebus. In 2024, they had another DNA match for James Fitzjames, the Captain of Erebus whose body was subject to cannibalism. The remains of these recently identified sailors show no evidence 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.
The team’s research uncovered that Rich Preston, a BBC News journalist, is 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.”
To reveal the identities of the four sailors, Stephen Fratpietro, study co-author from Lakehead University, extracted DNA from the archaeological samples and compared it with mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA from descendants. In all four of these new cases, the comparison yielded matches with a genetic distance of zero — strong proof that they share a common ancestor.
DNA samples from descendants are critical to identifying remains and leading to insights on the sailors’ escape attempt. Eligible descendants are determined by genealogical documentation demonstrating a direct, unbroken maternal or paternal lineage. The researchers encourage other descendants of the Franklin expedition to connect with them to see if their DNA can help identify other individuals.
The findings appear in two papers. DNA identifications of three 1845 Franklin expedition sailors from HMS Erebus appears in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. The second paper by the same authors, 'Some very hard ground to heave': DNA identification of Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop, HMS Terror, will appear in Polar Record.
