Students in Ramapo’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) Center have yet again helped solve a decades old mystery. The center helped identify a human skull whose origins had been previously unknown.
The human skull dates back to more than 200 years ago and was discovered in Claremont, N.H. At the time, the skull was said to have been on display in a New Hampshire attorney office since the ‘80s.
The investigation into the skull’s origins started in 2019 when assistant professor of anthropology at UNH Dr. Amy Michael was made aware of the display by a student.
The origins and identity of the skull remained a mystery as it resided in the Forensic Anthropology Identification and Recovery (FAIR) Lab at UNH until 2024 when they contacted Ramapo’s IGG Center to assist in the investigation.
To help the FAIR Lab identify the skull by creating a DNA profile to help their genetic genealogy investigation, IGG sent a portion of it to a forensics lab in California. The piece of skull was sent to Astrea Forensics, a lab that specializes in collecting sufficient DNA from compromised samples.
This information helped aid the IGG Centers genetic genealogy investigation and by last November, the profile was uploaded to one of the two genetic genealogy databases the IGG Center uses, GEDmatch PRO. The IGG Center also frequently makes use of FamilyTreeDNA.
From there, students in Ramapo’s IGG program were able to learn more about the skull, using the IGG Centers process of combing through census records, birth and death records, obituaries and other public records to reverse engineer family trees.
The IGG Center was able to identify close genetic relatives, leading to the theory that the skull belongs to a child from the mid 19th century. It is believed that the skull is linked to Sarah Shields and Samuel Matchette, who are presumably the child’s parents. Shields and Matchette died in a region of Canada with strong ties to Claremont.
The IGG Center also offers a remote certificate program for students internationally. The program allows students to learn how to efficiently conduct IGG research and how to use it ethically.
This is not the first mystery Ramapo’s IGG Center has helped solve, this past November the center assisted in the making of an arrest for the 1974 murder of 26-year-old Mary Schlais. With stray DNA belonging to Schlais’ attacker left at the scene, the IGG Center was able to identify Jon K. Miller, who was then arrested and charged with Schlais’ murder.
The IGG Center has also assisted in getting charges exonerated, as in the case of Robert and David Bintz this past September. The two brothers were wrongfully charged in relation to the homicide of Sandra Lison and were released once the IGG Center helped identify the true perpetrator.
Currently, the IGG Center has more than 30 cases they are in the process of investigating. The IGG website does not list cases of violent crimes due to the sensitivity of such cases. The IGG Center works on cases from across the U.S., including cases in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, North Carolina and more.
jhammer@ramapo.edu
Featured photo by Ramapo College
