December 2010

Benjaman Kyle – Close Calls, Conclusion?

By |2010-12-30T13:26:11-08:00December 30th, 2010|

All anyone knew about him was that he was born Robert Lee King in March 1949. To find Jennie King's remaining son was going to be tough with so little information to go on. Benjaman Kyle claims his birthdate is August 29, 1948 because he remembers that he was born exactly ten years before Michael Jackson.  But memory is a funny thing. Carl Litel, Jennie's second known son, was adopted the day he was born, February 5, 1946. Jennie held him only once before he was taken away. Carl's adoptive parents Joseph and Cecelia Litel provided a wonderful home for Carl and his adopted brother James.  The couple also had two natural [...]

Benjaman Kyle – Close Calls, Part III

By |2010-12-23T01:34:52-08:00December 23rd, 2010|

From 1938 through 1953, Jennie Lee King gave birth to four boys, putting the older three up for adoption or in foster homes.  She was born Barnett Rudio in Louisville, KY on December 20, 1918 the daughter of Wallace Rudio and Lillian Barbara Winkler. Jennie may have been born out of wedlock as, soon after she was born, Lillian married Walter L. King who supposedly adopted her and renamed her Jennie Lee King. Jennie moved with her family to Indianapolis, IN in the 1920s.  Soon after graduating from Technical High School, she became pregnant and gave birth to her oldest son Michael Lee King on March 23, 1938 at St. [...]

Benjaman Kyle – Close Calls, Part II

By |2010-12-14T13:24:36-08:00December 14th, 2010|

Since I have been involved in trying to identify the amnesiac Benjaman Kyle, I've seen many leads come in, ranging from the casual to the very serious. Many people have contacted me that they are related to Powells or Davidsons (or both).  Many people have written to direct me to websites describing missing persons who they believe might be Benjaman.  Many others have sent in pictures of their relatives, friends and acquaintances who they believe resemble Benjaman, in a sincere desire to assist in his identification. One example of a Benjaman look-alike is this picture sent to me by Mary Beth Pierson who believed her former neighbor resembled him. I agreed, although the neighbor had been a pilot [...]

Benjaman Kyle – Close Calls, Part I

By |2010-12-12T02:00:05-08:00December 12th, 2010|

Hi Colleen:   I read the article about you in the June 2010 issue of More Magazine, and am curious about one thing. Are you the same person who competed on Wheel of Fortune in 1991? If so, I was one of your competitors. Just curious!   Margot Theresa Cox   In fact, I was on Wheel of Fortune in 1991.  (I lost.  I was the third contestant in line, and the other two women, including Margot, mopped up on the puzzles before I could get a letter in edgewise.)   When I wrote her back, identifying myself as her competitor, Margot answered: When I got your response I had to [...]

Benjaman's 23 and Me Matches

By |2010-12-09T22:36:13-08:00December 9th, 2010|

Benjaman Kyle is the adopted name of an amnesiac who was found near Savannah, GA in August 2004.  (See his Wikipedia page for more details.)  Since recovering from a severe beating that left him unconscious, he cannot remember who he is.  Benjaman took a 23andMe autosomal DNA test earlier this year, hoping to discover close relatives, or at least possible names in his family and the geographical locations where they could be found. As of December 9, 2010, Benjaman's list of 23andMe matches includes a total of 411 matches ranging from 3rd to 10th cousins.  Benjaman's top 23andMe match is a third cousin named Thomas Perry whose family has lived in the area around Saluda, [...]

September 2010

Bonnie's New Family

By |2010-09-06T01:43:45-07:00September 6th, 2010|

Finding Bonnie's birth father was one of our most difficult birth parent searches.  Bonnie and her brother Michael knew they were born in Germany in the 1950s, but they did not know they were adopted until 2002.  Although Bonnie had a copy of her birth cerificate, she had not questioned why her parents names did not appear on it, and why it was issued two years after she was born.  When Bonnie's mother passed away, a chance remark by a neighbor revealed the truth.  Bonnie explains: We only found out [we were adopted] because of a neighbor woman, who knew my mother through Bingo.  I was walking my dogs when she approached me and offered her condolences.  She casually mentioned to me [...]

DNA Rule-Out for Cold Case, Australia, 1970 – Part II

By |2010-09-01T23:51:35-07:00September 1st, 2010|

Through a casual exchange of emails a few weeks ago, Deb Cashion alerted me to a recent article "Police chase DNA of Elmer Crawford relatives in Northern Ireland" that appeared in the Herald Sun.  It described the Victoria police search for a DNA family reference for Crawford.     Since I was traveling in Ireland at the time, I offered to help locate the required reference.  Deb put me in touch with Keith Moor, the Insight Editor of the Herald Sun, an award-winning journalist and the author of the article.  Keith forwarded me two new articles that appeared in the Sun on July 14 "Mystery man was a drifter" and July 15 "Police chase tip to retrieve DNA" that provided more information [...]

August 2010

DNA Rule-Out for Cold Case, Australia, 1970 – Part I

By |2010-08-29T20:43:15-07:00August 29th, 2010|

A crime that could not escape media attention in Australia, any more than the Manson family murders could have evaded the public eye here in the States-Elmer Crawford brutally murdered his pregnant wife Theresa (35) and his three children Kathryn (13), James (8), and Karen (6) in 1970. He then disappeared.    He electrocuted them while they slept using an electrical cable he had fashioned from an extension cord and alligator clips he attached to various places on their bodies, then bashed them with a hammer.  He then drove nearly four hundred miles with their bodies in the back of his car, and rolled it over the side of the Loch Ard Gorge in Port Campbell National Park, Victoria.  He was probably hoping the car would vanish [...]

Unknown Child on the Titanic – Part IV (Conclusion)

By |2023-06-11T10:44:00-07:00August 21st, 2010|

When AFDIL attempted an identification through Y-DNA, I was asked by my colleague Dr. Odile Loreille to find a Y-DNA reference for Sidney Goodwin.  We were just finishing up the identification of The Hand in the Snow, so she knew I was available for a new project. Of course, my first step was to search Ancestry.com to obtain information about the Goodwin genealogy.  I immediately found Sidney's parents Frederick and Augusta in 1901 living in Middlesex with their four oldest children Lillian (5), Charles (4), William (2), and Jessie (1).  Frederick was listed as a print compositer.Because Frederick and his sons perished on the Titanic, to find a Y-reference for the family [...]

Unknown Child on the Titanic – Part III

By |2023-06-11T10:42:19-07:00August 19th, 2010|

Cell with Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA To understand what happened next, you have to know a little about mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).  Mitochondrial DNA is contained in small, football-shaped inclusions outside the nucleus of a cell. It's widely believed that mitochondria were once independent bacteria that invaded primitive cells millions of years ago.  Instead of being digested, these bacteria took up residence in the cell, forming a symbiotic relationship with it.  The cell provided them with food and water, and the mitochondria provided the cell with energy for metabolism and heat.  The arrangement worked out so well that millennia later, a human cell has up to 1,000 mitochondria, each carrying five to ten copies [...]

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