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 [...]

Identifinders Locates Family of Harry Dugan Brown

By |2010-08-08T15:15:29-07:00August 8th, 2010|

Our first success working with History Flight and Missing Air Crew was the location of the Jenny, the sister of Harry Brown, who was killed while flying his VF-20 F6F-5 Hellcat on a routine mission over Yap Island on September 6, 1944.  Jenny is the ideal mitochondrial family reference for Harry's future DNA identification. Harry's family was very challenging to locate, considering how much time had elapsed since his death and the fact that his family name is one of the most common in the US. Another difficulty was that his father was listed with a different family name in Harry's casualty records, implying that Harry had been adopted.  Nevertheless, Identifinders was able to locate [...]

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