It was not an unusual occurrence on Oct. 31, 2003, when workers excavating for a gas pipeline near a new suburb of Avion, France, unearthed some human bones, a grim reminder of history. Little did they know that they themselves were setting history in motion when they notified authorities to come deal with the remains. That began a series of events that would lead to DNA evidence being used for the first time to put a name to recovered remains of an unidentified First World War soldier.

During the four years of the First World War the countryside around Avion was a giant mud hole, part of the hundreds of kilometres of trenches and fortifications stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss border. More than 66,000 Canadians were killed. Many of their bodies were never recovered; some were buried deep by bomb blasts, others hastily buried by recovery crews.

Although some scars of war are still visible, the raw wounds in the earth have healed. The peaceful countryside remains an unintentional cemetery, but not a permanent one, for two soldiers. Private Herbert Peterson, 21, of Edmonton was identified and given a proper military burial nearly 90 years after his death. The other soldier remains unidentified.

Dozens of Canadian scientists and researchers, most of them volunteers, put in thousands of hours in research, combed countless databases and helped develop new methods and technology for putting names to these two unknown soldiers.

The Military

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), collected the remains, which they suspected to be of at least one Canadian soldier, and informed the Department of National Defence’s Directorate of History and Heritage (DHH), which deals with identification and funerals.

“At any one time, DHH has between 50 and 60 sets of unidentified remains,” says Laurel Clegg of casualty identification. Canada has about 30,000 soldiers with no known grave, including more than 19,600 from the First World War and another 8,000 from the Second World War. “About one third of Canada’s First World War casualties were never recovered,” Clegg says.

DND organizes military funerals for soldiers who died in service of their countries. “We don’t differentiate between a soldier who dies in Afghanistan and one who died 100 years ago,” says Major James McKillip, a DHH historian and team leader. “When soldiers die in service, regardless of when they fell, they deserve a military funeral.”

But before the funeral comes a sometimes exhaustive investigation during which a long list of yes or no questions is asked, any one of which can stop the process. First, are the remains truly Canadian?

Artifacts recovered included four buttons and a button-cleaning kit, a regimental cap badge and shoulder flashes bearing the inscriptions “49” and “Canada,” an upper bridge of six teeth, remains of a gas mask, webbing, buckles, a water bottle, entrenching tool, lumps of metal and .303 ammunition. Hand grenades were also found but destroyed almost immediately due to their unstable nature. A regimental cap badge and buttons of the 49th Battalion, Canadian Infantry were a strong indicator, but were Canadian troops ever in action where the remains were found?

DHH historian and prolific author Dr. Ken Reynolds searched the casualty database and Official History of the Canadian Army, to learn the 49th Bn. Canadian Infantry fought in the Avion area in June and July 1917 as part of the 7th Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division. So, yes, the remains could be Canadian.

From there, battle diaries revealed there was only one time the 49th did not recover their dead in the area—during a night raid on German trenches June 8-9, 1917, that cost the battalion 36 men. Of these, 16 were not recovered, and their names were subsequently listed on the Vimy Memorial.

Perusing military records and historic maps used in planning the raid, Reynolds found out where the men in the four companies of the 49th were sent on that fateful night, and where the casualties were most likely to have happened. Cross-referencing with modern maps, he discovered the remains of these two men had been recovered from a site near the rear of the German lines.

The sets of remains had nothing to indicate personal identification. From personal records like their attestation papers and medical records, Reynolds was able to put together a brief profile of each soldier. Although the bridgework was helpfully labelled with the number 5164, no records were found to link this dental work to a soldier’s name.

In the past, at this point such comingled remains might well have been buried together under a headstone indicating the barest of information, says McKillip. It was what the CWGC recommended, thinking it would be impossible to separate the remains. “But we asked if we could do more, and the answer was yes,” says McKillip. Advances in technology allowed DND to go further.

It was possible a forensic anthropological examination could separate the individuals, and narrow down the list of possibilities. Dr. Vera Tiesler-Blos, osteology professor from the Autonomous University of the Yucatan in Merida, Mexico, “separated the two sets of remains in about six hours,” says McKillip.

The United States military had used DNA analysis to identify recovered remains of soldiers as far back as the Second World War. Luckily, Dr. Carney Matheson of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., specializes in recovering ancient DNA and was brought on board.

DNA typing “is a great tool,” says McKillip. “The reality is the farther you go back, the less likely people can be identified by other circumstances.”

However, it’s not used in all cases. For instance, if comingled remains of members of a bomber or tank crew are discovered, it’s not necessary to determine the identities of each body. If you’ve found one, you’ve found them all. The families are notified and the funeral is arranged.

Sometimes examination of historical documents provides an identity. “The documentary search is the longest, most elaborate part of the process,” says McKillip. “Everybody likes to talk about the DNA testing because it’s sexy and cool, but it is the final confirmation of a long trail of research leading to the identification.” So far it’s been used in only a handful of cases, and several more are awaiting genealogical data before testing proceeds, says Clegg.

The Forensic Anthropologist

Carney Matheson, chief of Forensic Research for Lakehead University’s Paleo-DNA lab, and an associate professor of anthropology, is an Australian whose sunny grin is as broad as his accent. He’s been called in on tough cases before, once developing new techniques for DNA recovery for analysis of degraded samples from two Iron Age or Roman Era bodies recovered from a bog in the Netherlands. His ingenuity would again be necessary in this difficult case.

DND chose Matheson not only because there are very few in the world with his specialty, but also because he had volunteered to help in a previous, and unsuccessful, project to use DNA typing to identify a First World War soldier, says Clegg.

Matheson and Tiesler-Blos accompanied the DND team to Beaurains, France, where the remains were in the keeping of the CWGC. Their forensic anthropological analysis resulted in separation of the remains into two individuals, incomplete skeletons representing most of one individual and the upper body of a second.

Wear on the teeth produced estimates of age; length of bones gave an idea of height; and signs of wear and degenerative changes provided clues as to occupation before the war. Damage to the bones hinted at an explosion as cause of death for the second individual—which could explain absence of the lower part of the skeleton—but there could be other explanations, including hasty recovery.

One individual was thought to be between 26 and 34 years old, five feet seven to five feet nine inches tall, and used to hard physical work. He had bridgework for the upper centre six teeth. The second soldier might have been slightly shorter, aged 20 to 25, and robust.

At the end of this examination, four of the 16 missing soldiers had the right size, age and background to be consideredcandidates for one set of remains; five were identified for the other.

But Matheson’s final investigative duty—to compare DNA from the two individuals to living relatives—would have to wait nearly three years, until the genealogical investigation was completed and DNA samples from relatives gathered.

He put together a team based at Lakehead University that included his­tor­ians, archeologists, genealogists and DNA lab specialists who would volunteer their expertise and many hours of their time to identify the two soldiers and try to explain how their remains ended up where they did.

The Archeologist And The History Professor

Tal Fisher, a bio-archeology laboratory technician at Lakehead University at the time, and Lakehead University history professor David Ratz are both Canadian Forces reservists, military buffs and good buddies. It was Fisher’s main job to identify the artifacts, Ratz’s job to study the historical documents, and they collaborated on an explanation of what happened to the soldiers.

The team was handicapped from the start by the way the remains had been recovered. “The relationship of artifacts to each other and the skeletal remains is important,” says Fisher, but lost because the site was a construction excavation, not an archeological dig.

In a proper archeological recovery, a three-dimensional area around the bones would have been carefully cleared, the location of all artifacts and their relationships to one another in that 3D space carefully noted. As it is, the small bones of the more complete skeleton are missing, and “things you would expect to be there weren’t,” and vice versa. Explaining why it is complicated by the fact “we don’t know how far they dug in space, or how well they recovered things.” For instance, no rifles were recovered. Were they close by, but not recovered, or were they missing?

Examination of the artifacts revealed items normally associated with an officer—identity bracelet, flare, binoculars—were not there, suggesting these weren’t the remains of an officer.

Following in Reynold’s footprints, Ratz and Fisher pored over the war diaries of the 49th Bn., the Royal Canadian Regiment and the 7th Brigade to understand what happened on that field near Avion on the night of June 8-9, 1917. The men of the 49th Bn. were positioned on the left of the field, part of a force of about 200. They had two objectives: the German front line trench and support trenches, named Acorn, Adult and Agent. As part of stand­ard raid procedure, says Ratz, each platoon, section and individual soldier had a specialized task and specific equipment.

Reports of the action mention only two of the missing Canadians by name, and one by position. “We learned how the casualties occurred, and at what points in the battle, and what happened after the battle,” says Ratz. Some casualties were due to Canadian artillery bursts that fell short of target into the advancing ranks throughout the raid, others to German defensive fire.

At zero hour all four companies of the 49th surged forward through the rain and haze under cover of barrage and machine-gun fire. The raiders attacked the German trenches, bombed dug-outs, captured or destroyed machine- guns, captured 136 prisoners and left behind an estimated 700 German casualties. After the raid, German stretcher parties were seen collecting the dead and wounded for the next three days. The Germans did not immediately reoccupy these trenches, and later abandoned them. Ratz and Fisher are still trying to find German records from that night, hoping they may add detail.

Using maps earlier examined, “We were able to identify where the artifacts were recovered, ‘in front of this house, within a 20-metre radius,’” Fisher says. He believes this may have been 50 metres behind the German objective. If so, how did they get there?

There are just about as many opinions as there are researchers on the project. “The different positions offered by different analysts illustrate the difficulty of reaching a concrete conclusion in cases like this,” says McKillip.

One theory was that the two met their fates as one was carrying the other over his shoulder, a theory based on green stains on the bones. If one soldier was carrying the other and they fell after an explosion, the face and lower arms of one soldier could have come to rest on the other’s water bottle or ammunition pouch, which subsequently stained the bones. However, examination of period photographs reveals water bottles were carried on the opposite side of the body, and the extent of staining is better explained by contact with the brass casings of rifle cartridges, Fisher and Ratz argue. Perhaps the pair died on the final objective and their bodies were covered over with dirt following an explosion. Or more likely, they argue, the bodies were recovered from the battlefield by the Germans and given a hasty field burial at the recovery site. And there could be other explanations.

Identifying the remains of these two soldiers is not some academic exercise for these guys. It’s personal.

“Actually having part of the bodies changes things,” Ratz says. Even though 90 years have passed for families of First World War veterans, “you can relate to the fact that here are families with loved ones that are still missing. There’s no body to have a funeral for, no grave marker. These people have nothing. We have the Vimy Memorial and Menin Gate with names on them, but it’s not quite the same. From my point of view as a patriotic Canadian and as a historian and as a member of the military—bringing closure for the Petersons is worth all the work and effort that’s gone into it.”

As well, Ratz is a member of the Lake Superior Scottish Regt., which perpetuates the 52nd New Ontario Bn. from the First World War. “They didn’t fight in the same brigade as the 49th, but were in the same division and were often supporting one another,” says Ratz. As well, he has friends in the Loyal Edmonton Regt., which perpetuates the 49th. Despite the distance in time, you get the sense Ratz and Fisher consider these soldiers who died so long ago as brothers-in-arms.

The Genealogy Co-ordinator

At first meeting you’re likely to characterize Janet Roy as a dynamo, but as time goes on you learn she has more heart than can be captured in such a mechanical description. A Paleo-DNA internship under Matheson coupled with a background and interest in genealogy made her ideal for the volunteer team.

To start, “I decided it would be a good idea to verify the information” provided by DND. She knew some young men fudged their birthdates in their anxiety to sign up; and that errors can be made in hurried and routine form-filling like that of hectic recruitment centres. She created a spreadsheet for the 16 missing soldiers, with a slot for all the pertinent data, including height, age, birthdate and place, occupation and name and location of next of kin.

Using birth, death and marriage records she did find some errors, such as wrong birth years and dates. Roy cross-matched the descriptions developed from the bone analysis of the two soldiers with the nine most likely candidates. From there, it was her job to find living family members eligible to give a DNA sample.

This took her to community and newspaper archives, census records and online resources. She contacted families only after she had done as much independent research as she could, and even then, sometimes it was a hard sell to interest relatives in the project. “I’ve been hung up on in three countries.” She contacted people from Ukraine, Ireland, Britain, Australia and Sweden.

To make it easier to track which relatives could be used for Y-DNA carried through the male line, and which for mitochondrial DNA (mt-DNA) from the female line, she made up a colour-coded family tree for each man, filling it in as she went along. Sometimes it was impossible to get samples of both.

For instance, Peterson had only brothers, and since that generation had all passed on by the time of the search, Roy had to look to the next generation, to nephews, who might give a Y-DNA sample. Since mt-DNA from nieces would come from their own mothers, not Peterson’s, Roy had to go back a generation to identify an aunt (who would share Peterson’s maternal DNA), and trace any of her children. Sometimes to find an intact female line, she’d have to go back to a maternal grandmother’s generation and trace from there. “Sometimes you’re dealing with eight generations,” she said.

When she found relatives to provide samples, she mailed out buccal swab kits. The candidate would swab the inside of one cheek, let the swab dry for an hour, then mail the samples directly to the lab.

The search preoccupied Roy for three years. Since she was dealing with people in different time zones, she was dealing with relatives of the missing men at all hours, fielding emotional questions, offering support.

She is the “heart” of the project. “When I stood where our guys were found and stood in trenches where First World War soldiers died and fought…I cried through the whole thing,” she says, her eyes misting up still. “I’ve seen pictures of their children. I’ve talked to their families. I know them.”

So she’s not about to give up on Peterson’s comrade, if comrade he is. If, after the next round of DNA testing, “it’s none of these guys, then I have to move out into the peripheral information. There’s easy stuff and there’s hard stuff and we’re doing the easy stuff first.”

The Matchmaker

Matheson’s final investigative duty was to compare DNA samples of the missing men to those of living relatives.

It’s now a routine matter to sequence DNA from a living source. Working with ancient DNA, taken from tooth or bone, is much trickier. First of all, samples are easily contaminated with foreign DNA. “Even our own breath is enough to contaminate a sample,” says Matheson. So the samples need to be processed in a “clean” laboratory, like that of the Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University. Everyone in the lab wears full-body Tyvek suits, face masks, goggles and gloves when handling samples. The facility is isolated from labs handling modern DNA, and has a dedicated air system.

DNA is nature’s instruction book for building a human being. It’s found in two places in our cells: the nucleus, the command centre of the cell, and the mitochondria, the cell’s power plant. Nuclear DNA is inherited from both parents; mitochondrial DNA comes from the mother. Both can be used for genetic testing.

Each person’s nuclear DNA is unique (save for identical twins), since the genetic material from the mother and father combines in different patterns for each child. That explains why each child in a family looks different. However, DNA is made up of only four building blocks, called nucleotides, which combine in repeated patterns that may be passed on. DNA samples of close relatives may have many similarities, which explains, for example, why the “family chin” can be recognized in photographs of different generations.

Matheson’s original aim was to use mt-DNA profiling, because mt-DNA, which is handed down from mother to child, generation after generation, is much more abundant in samples than nuclear DNA. In tiny samples degraded by exposure and age, it’s a better bet for getting a large enough sample to test. It’s also more stable than nuclear DNA, so is more likely to be found in very old and degraded samples. But with about 16,000 base pairs of nucleotides, compared to about 60 million base pairs in the Y-chromosome, mt-DNA is less diverse, meaning it’s more likely similar nucleotide patterns will appear in un­related individuals.

However, mt-DNA wasn’t available from relatives of all 16 missing men, so Matheson had to develop a technique that would work with the degraded nuclear samples.

To determine male ancestry, tests are done on Y-chromosomes, which are found only in men and are passed father to son. Researchers looked for matching nucleotide pattern repeats in certain segments of DNA from the two soldiers and those same segments of DNA from male representatives of the candidate families. The problem is, in ancient samples, bits of DNA are missing from the chain of data, making it as hard to read as a line of text in an ancient scroll riddled with holes. However, unlike text in ancient scrolls, the message in DNA is repeated. Matheson found a way to overlap the information from shorter runs of nucleotide repeats to provide a similar amount of information as found in complete samples.

A match was found between Peterson’s DNA and that of his living nephew, also named Herbert Peterson after his uncle. But Y-DNA testing of the second soldier was inconclusive, likely because the samples were too damaged.

The samples are being sent to a different lab for testing, and DND is sifting through the documentary evidence again. “Did we leave out somebody that should be in that testing? Did we get the right sample? Maybe there’s something else in the history, archaeology or genealogy that can lead us to an answer,” says Clegg. “It could take a month, a year, five years. It’s a really complicated process.”

Pte. Peterson was buried at La Chaudière Military Cemetery, April 7, 2007, with military pomp and ceremony. His casket was carried by modern members of the Loyal Edmonton Regt.

Although Peterson died long ago, emotion was raw at his funeral. “It takes something massive and incomprehensible—how can you mourn 66,000 dead or 19,000 dead?—and reduces it down to one guy. It personalizes it. You can focus on one person, focus on his family, see how they’ve been affected. It yanks it right out of history and makes it a tangible event today,” says Clegg.

His funeral was attended by relatives, dignitaries—and a small group of scientists and researchers. He was buried about two kilometres from where his remains were found, near 14 other members of the 49th Bn. killed in the same trench raid.

Peterson is in hallowed ground now, his name on his own headstone. Right next to his grave is an empty plot awaiting the remains of the second soldier, the headstone still blank.

Still waiting for a name.