mtDNA - Identifinders International, LLC

Who Am I? What is My Name? Part II – Pnina, Wolfgang, and the Warsaw Ghetto

By Austin Bethell|2022-07-06T01:47:43-07:00December 12th, 2012|

Barbara Rebhun? Convinced that my surname was Rebhun, I contacted Rebhuns around the world. Though the BBC, CNN, and the international press featured my quest, I initially received no responses. Finally in March 1997, the Munich Red Cross relayed a reply from a German named Wolfgang Rebhun, who was searching for his little sister, Baschka (Barbara in German). After receiving the Red Cross letter I began a correspondence with Wolfgang Rebhun. Then after a very short time we went to Germany, to meet Wolfgang and his (and my) sister Adela and some other members of the family. The meeting was very warm and exciting. To them it was a [...]

The Mascot

By Austin Bethell|2011-05-29T19:09:00-07:00May 29th, 2011|

The Mascot Keith Moor, Insight Editor at the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne, Victoria recently published an article on The Mascot, the international bestselling biography of Holocaust survivor Alex Kurzem. To read the article in pdf format, click here. As Keith mentions, the foundation of the story is undeniably true. Alex was adopted by the 18th Kurzeme Latvian Police Battalion in July 1942 as a child in the forest around Minsk. Yet my colleague, college professor Dr. Barry Resnick and I have uncovered much that lends doubts to his claims that he was a Jewish boy who survived the Nazi massacre of his family six months earlier; a massacre that in some version [...]

Benjaman Kyle – Close Calls, Conclusion?

By Austin Bethell|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 Austin Bethell|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 Austin Bethell|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 Austin Bethell|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 [...]

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

By Austin Bethell|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 [...]

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

By Austin Bethell|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 Austin Bethell|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 Austin Bethell|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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