Lakehead Paleo-DNA lab helps identify lost Franklin Expedition member

THUNDER BAY - On July 9, 1845, Warrant Officer John Gregory, an engineer aboard HMS Erebus, sent a letter from Greenland to his wife Hannah before sailing off with the ill-fated Franklin Expedition into the Canadian Arctic and into an enduring historical mystery.

For 176 years that letter was the last Gregory’s descendants had known about his journey, but now they have an ending to his story, as his remains have become the first from the expedition to be positively identified with the help of researchers at Lakehead University’s Paleo-DNA Lab.

“Everybody wants to know what happened. That’s the big question,” said Stephen Fratpietro, technical manager at the Centre for Analytical Services Paleo-DNA Laboratory.

“What happened and how come nobody survived and what happened to the individuals. They were trapped up there for years and years. That’s what fascinates me.”

Fratpietro is the co-author of the paper titled: DNA identification of a sailor from the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition published in the journal Polar Record.

Researchers from Lakehead University, the University of Waterloo, and Trent University worked on the project, the latter two having funded the research along with the Government of Nunavut.

Gregory’s remains, along with two others, were first found in 1859 on King William Island and buried in 1879. His grave was rediscovered in 1993 and four years later, several bones that had been exposed following disturbances to the site were placed in a cairn with a commemorative plaque.

The site was excavated in 2013 and several bone and tooth fragments were collected for analysis before being returned in 2014 and placed in a larger memorial cairn.

“We now know that John Gregory was one of three expedition personnel who died at this particular site, located at Erebus Bay on the southwest shore of King William Island,” said Douglas Stenton, adjunct professor of anthropology at Waterloo and co-author of the paper.

Fratpietro and his team were responsible for identifying Gregory using DNA extracted from the bone and teeth samples to create DNA profiles.

“We looked at two main types of DNA. When we are talking about ancient degraded material, we look at Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA,” Fratpietro said.

“Those two types are DNA profiles that can last over many generations. For example, mitochondrial DNA is a direct maternal linage, which you get from your mother, who gets it from her mother, and her mother. As it’s passed down through the generations it doesn’t change.”

After the DNA profiles are created, it’s a matter of finding possible living descendants with a direct maternal or paternal lineage to Franklin Expedition members and extracting DNA from them to develop profiles and comparing whom matches to whom.

“In this case it was our first match where we were able to identify one set of remains as belonging to that of John Gregory,” Fratpietro said.

“That was based on one of the living decedents who had given us their DNA because they could trace their family genealogy as a direct paternal descendent to John Gregory.”

Gregory’s great-great-great grandson, Jonathan Gregory, lives in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  

“Having John Gregory's remains being the first to be identified via genetic analysis is an incredible day for our family, as well as all those interested in the ill-fated Franklin expedition,” he said in a statement.

“The whole Gregory family is extremely grateful to the entire research team for their dedication and hard work, which is so critical in unlocking pieces of history that have been frozen in time for so long.”

The Franklin Expedition has long fascinated historians and people across the world. Launched in 1845 and led by Sir John Franklin, the ambitious voyage sought to find the elusive Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic.

The two state-of-the-art vessels, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, along with 129 men, became locked in the sea ice in the Victoria Strait near King William Island. In 1848, 105 survivors abandoned the vessels and attempted to escape the frozen landscape by trekking south overland.

Based on the evidence, Gregory appears to have been one of the survivors who attempted to trek out of the Arctic. 

“The identification proves that Gregory survived three years locked in the ice on board HMS Erebus. But he perished 75 kilometers south at Erebus Bay,” said Robert Park, Waterloo anthropology professor and co-author.

None of the expedition members survived and while the mystery of what exactly happened has endured for more than 175 years, more clues continue to come to light.

In 2014, the wreck of HMS Erebus was found in Queen Maud Gulf west of O’Reilly Island. The wreck of HMS Terror was found in 2016 south of King William Island.

The remains of expedition members have been located as well, including three crew members buried in marked graves on Beechey Island in 1984.

There have been many other sites excavated throughout the region that uncovered the remains of Europeans but none have been positively identified.

“We found all of these European samples, which is why we believe they belong to the Franklin Expedition,” Fratpietro said. “We have a database of these profiles that were found in the Arctic and we put out a blanket call to anybody who can trace their family ancestry back to a Franklin Expedition member.”

According to Fratpietro, the Paleo-DNA Lab has information on 26 individuals whose remains have been found and believed to be Franklin Expedition members.

There are also 19 families who have traced lineages back to crew members but Fratepietro said there are many more out there and many more stories that will one day receive a proper ending.

“The plan is for more possible decedents of the Franklin Expedition to come forward and identify the remains we have found so far,” he said. “We are hoping after this paper is published more families will come forward and we will be able to identify more remains found in the Arctic.”

“Some people just want to know what happened to their ancestors, so this would be the end of the story. So when they are passing the story on to future generations, they have a beginning, they have an end, there’s no more mystery going forward.”