Living on through DNA: Another crew member identified from the 1845 Franklin expedition

The skeletal remains of a crew member from the Sir John Franklin's failed 1845 Northwest Passage expedition was given a name  - James Fitzjames. This is only the second member of the crew to be identified though DNA analysis. Researchers from Lakehead University and the University of Waterloo worked together in the joint study.

Capt. James Fitzjames, a senior officer on the HMS Erebus, was believed to have attempted to help the 105 sailors of the doomed Franklin expedition clear the Northwest Passage in his final days of April 1848. The 1845 exploration to find the Northwest Passage ended in starvation, death -- and according to marks on Fitzjames' jawbone, cannibalism.

Stephen Fratpietro, the Technical Manager for the Lakehead University Paleo-DNA Laboratory, was responsible for getting DNA from the samples and matching them to descendants. He said the remains were found about 80 kilometers away from where they deserted the HMS Erebus and made their way to King William Island.

Evidence of cannibalism 

However, it was through a DNA analysis of the captain's jawbone found on the island, that the team found new insights about the expedition's sad ending.

"On this mandible they did find cut marks or evidence of cut marks," said Fratpietro. "So it looks as though that this individual or James Fitzjames, he was possibly cannibalized and that was probably his final situation that he was in. It was a dire survival situation and whoever was with him at the time probably used him to survive."

University of Waterloo's Douglas Stenton at commemorative cairn at NgLj-2 where the remains of James Fitzjames and twelve other Franklin expedition sailors rest. (R. Park)

In the 1850s, the Inuit were reported to have seen evidence that survivors had resorted to cannibalism. Those accounts were later corroborated in 1997 by the late Dr. Anne Keenleyside who found cut marks on nearly one-quarter of the human bones at the site, NgLj-2.

DNA and genealogical analyses

Fitzjames's remains are also now the second of the 105 to be positively identified, joining John Gregory, engineer aboard HMS Erebus, who the team identified in 2021.

At this particular site, Fratpietro said there are 13 individuals consisting of around 451 bones.

"We've identified two individuals at this point and we'd love to be able to identify individuals in the future," said Fratpietro.

However, reaching their goal of identifying every member of the Franklin expedition is not easy.

He said it is all based on living descendants providing their DNA and them being able to compare the living descendant DNA to their library of DNA that was achieved from working on the rest of the samples.

Living descendant

The DNA donor that matched the sailor's DNA was a second cousin of Fitzjames, five times removed and is linked to him through two of James Gambier's sons: Fitzjames' grandfather, also named James Gambier and his brother John Gambier, who was Fitzjames' grand-uncle.

Fratpietro said while his team was initially a little bit apprehensive about mentioning that Fitzjames was cannibalized, they wanted to present the facts and excited to share the results with his living descendent.

"The living descendant was a little bit taken aback, but he wasn't upset about it or anything. And he said something to the effect that he is kind of glad that his ancestor wasn't the one doing the cannibalizing, but at least he was eaten instead," said Fratpietro.

Going forward, Fratpietro's team will use this research to help them figure out what exactly happened during the expedition, from which sailors went, how they migrated from their ships, and where they ended up.

"It's just great that we can do this kind of research at Lakehead University and it does change history," said Fratpietro. "We are asking the public if they think that they have a member of the Franklin expedition somewhere in their family tree to contact us. We ensure that they're a good candidate for DNA testing and then hopefully they can help us identify more of these individuals that we have found up north."