--- title: "DNA science and public databases offer a new way to identify soldiers’ remains" description: "Researchers extracted DNA from remains found at a Revolutionary War battle site and began comparing them to public records. " date: "2025-10-14" modified: "2025-10-14" authors: - name: "Jos Joseph" job_title: "Marine Corps Veteran, Contributor" link: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/authors/joslinjoseph/" url: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/military-news/dna-science-and-public-databases-offer-a-new-way-to-identify-soldiers-remains/" categories: - "History" - "Military News" - "War History" tags: - "Military History" - "Revolutionary War" --- # DNA science and public databases offer a new way to identify soldiers’ remains ![Soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Maryland Regiment squared off against British regulars from the 71st Highlanders at the 1781 Battle of Camden. Today, researchers are identifying the remains from the battlefield.]() *Soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Maryland Regiment squared off against British regulars from the 71st Highlanders at the 1781 Battle of Camden. Today, researchers are identifying the remains from the battlefield. (Historic Camden)* In 1994, the remains of 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, an airman killed in the Vietnam War, were identified and confirmed by DNA testing in 1998. He was exhumed and reburied closer to his family. It was welcome news for his family, as Blassie had been missing in action since 1971. It was national news in the United States because, before his remains were identified, Blassie was interred in the [Tomb of the Unknown Soldier]() at Arlington National Cemetery. Now, a team of researchers is trying to do the same thing, except the war dead they are trying to identify are from our nation’s first conflict: The American Revolution. The Historic Camden Foundation and FHD Forensics have partnered up to try to identify the names of the Camden Fourteen, 14 Americans who died at the Battle of Camden in 1780. #### Related: [How the British ‘southern strategy’ ultimately cost them the Revolutionary War]() “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God." This is the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, serving as a stark reminder that there are those who have fallen in defense of this country and were never identified. Their families never knew their fate and hoped against hope that they would come home one day. Blassie was reinterred near his family in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam War remains empty as an honor to all of the POW/MIA from that conflict. But the tombs of the unknown from World War I, World War II, and the Korean War remain guarded, their identification forever unlikely due to recordkeeping and the passage of time. ![A Tomb Sentinel on duty at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.]() *A Tomb Guard on duty at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. (U.S. Army)* Advanced DNA science and public DNA databases offer a new way of potentially identifying unknown remains, on or off the battlefields. A new effort from [the Rev War Forensic Institute]() is dedicated to starting at the very beginning: with America's Revolutionary War unknowns. In 2023, researchers from [Astrea Forensics]() were able to extract DNA from 14 unknown remains unearthed from the 1781 Battle of Camden, in South Carolina. The battle was a major victory for the British when Lt. Gen. Charles, Lord Cornwallis, soundly defeated Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates, despite being outnumbered 2-to-1. The victory allowed the British to temporarily strengthen their hold on the South. After the battle, the dead and wounded were collected and buried or treated. However, in 2020, a grave was found that contained 14 remains of soldiers from the battle. The DNA samples extracted from the "Camden 14" were loaded into public databases, and from that, researchers were able to create a family tree that stretched back two centuries. ![14 soldiers unearthed from the site of the 1781 battle of camden]() *Unearthing the Camden 14. (Sarah Nell Blackwell/Courtesy of South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust)* "Our team is piecing together seven- to nine-generation family trees for each match, tracing generations containing between 64 and 256 ancestors each," noted Peacock. "We believe that the genetic distance between these men and their living descendants has never been attempted before in a John Doe investigation. One of the men was identified as a British soldier who served with the British 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser's Highlanders, a Scottish regiment formed for the Revolutionary War. In a ceremony where these men were buried in a proper cemetery with military honors, the British Army [sent an honor guard]() to help inter their fallen soldier. The rest of the Americans might have belonged to the 1st or 2nd Maryland Brigades. But who were they? Where were they from exactly? Can we know what families they came from? What did they do for work before they joined the Revolution? "The 2022/2023 efforts to recover and re-inter these individuals was just the beginning of honoring their sacrifices for a young nation," commented Southwick "Cary" Briggs, executive director, Historic Camden Foundation. "The ultimate honor is the ability to thank the unknowns by name and fill in the missing pieces of a modern-day family tree, which is what the institute will work to do." ![An honor guard from the Royal Regiment of Scotland acted as pallbearers for a soldier from the 71st Regiment of Foot who was killed at the Battle of Camden in 1780 and honored at a military funeral in Camden, South Carolina in April 2023. (Rev War Forensic Institute)]() *An honor guard from the Royal Regiment of Scotland acted as pallbearers for a soldier from the 71st Regiment of Foot who was killed at the Battle of Camden in 1780 and honored at a military funeral in Camden, South Carolina in April 2023. (Rev War Forensic Institute)* "Nowhere in the world has a group come together to research, document, and name America's oldest fallen," FHD Forensics president Allison Peacock said in a statement. “We are not only announcing our formal establishment as an organization, but we're also sharing what we've learned to date about two of the fourteen Revolutionary War combatants from the Battle of Camden. It's a mystery 244 years in the making." The scientists are making progress, and we already know a little about two of the fallen. Camden Subject 9B is a 14- to 18-year-old boy from Annapolis, Maryland. His closest relatives have the surnames Beall, Browne, Cheney, Davidge, Griffith, Pumphrey, Ridgley, Stewart, Wade, Warfield, Welsh, and Westall—all prominent founding families from Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Camden Subject 11A is believed to be of early Jamestown Colony descent, with one ancestor from an early 18th-century Ulster Scot or Irish immigrant family. Ancestral surnames in common with his genetic matches are Alexander, Beam, Birchfield, Boone, Bray, Cannady/Kennedy, Coleman, Embry, Hitchcock, Kash, McComb, Nickell, Owen, Poage, Scott, Soward/Seward, Taulbee/Tolbey, Waters, and Wilson. Hopefully, we will learn the identities of all these men and, if possible, learn about who they were and who their descendants are. It would be an amazing thing to know that your ancestor gave his life for a very young country. And it would be proper to honor them by name instead of being remembered as a soldier only "known but to God." To learn more, [visit the Rev War Forensic Institute website](). #### Now Read: The US military is using ‘Forensic Files’ technology to identify unknown remains ## Author Joslin Joseph is senior contributor for We Are The Mighty covering sports, entertainment, news, and history. He is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. After the service, he worked in the sports industry for organizations including the San Diego Padres, the Farmers Insurance Open, the University of Texas Athletics, Baylor Athletics, and Ohio State Athletics. He also helped build GovX’s sports, concert, and travel discount program for military veterans and first responders. His contributions to We Are The Mighty have included interviewing celebrities such as David Robinson, Craig Morgan, and Justin Fields. He also covered sports events and military participation in sports events such as the Super Bowl flyover. In addition to We Are The Mighty, Joslin’s writing has been published in The Hill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, San Francisco Chronicle, AOL, Yahoo News, Task & Purpose, and the Brattle Street Review. Born and raised in New Jersey, educated in Ohio, and currently living in Southern California. ### Author social links [LinkedIn]()