August 2010

Maurice Conway

By |2010-08-11T23:03:49-07:00August 11th, 2010|

The best part of our projects is the good friendships we form with the people whose lives we  touch.  On our recent trip to Ireland, Andy and I visited with Maurice Conway and his family in Co. Limerick.  Maurice provided the DNA match that confirmed that the remains found in the wreck of Northwest Flight 4422 were those of his distant cousin Francis Joseph van Zandt.   During our time together, Maurice took us to the old Conway farm where Frank's mother Margaret Conway was born and grew up.  We walked the road she walked with her sisters and brothers as they started from home for America.  And of course we paid our respects at the Conway [...]

The Hand in the Snow

By |2010-08-08T17:22:01-07:00August 8th, 2010|

Our blog would not be complete without a mention of The Hand in the Snow.  This was our first big military identification case with the Armed Forces DNA ID Laboratory, performed with a dream team of top forensic scientists.  Our successful identification of the frozen arm and hand found in the Alaska glacier as belonging to crash victim Francis Joseph van Zandt was featured in 300 newspapers worldwide, and will be published as a feature article in  Scientific American in the next few months.

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