DNA analysis for Eino Viljami Panula

[Melinda Laura Varju]

hey everyone!

I'm PROUD to be at BYU. Check this out: "Armed with this confirmation of the likely presence of dentin, the Parr-Ruffman team took the tooth to Brigham Young University in
Utah where DNA was extracted and identified. The Unknown Child now had a name: Eino Viljami Panula, a 13-month-old Finnish baby
who had been travelling with his mother and siblings when the Titanic went down." THAT'S MY UNIVERSITY! I'm writing frm there right now!

Cheers,
Melinda Laura Varju

 

[Timothy Trower]

Melinda,

I'd love to know more about the date of the research that you refer to. The most recent word that we have is that after the second stage of DNA testing was done (this done after the tentative identification of Eino Panula was made) that Eino Panula was proven NOT to be the Unknown Child and that Sidney Goodwin was proven TO be the Unknown Child.

Additionally, the shoes purported to have come from the body of the Unknown Child were tested and found to have NOT been exposed to salt water. The size of the shoes was one of the determining factors in ruling out Sidney Goodwin after just the first round of DNA testing was completed. Since the shoes could not have come from a body that had been floating in the sea for several days, their small size had no relation to the age of, or supposed age of the victim.

Final details have not yet been released on the timing of the DNA testing, but this positive identification of Sidney Goodwin was made public (sort of) just this April.

 

[Melinda Laura Varju]

Sort of, huh? Not so sure it seems. We will never know. it was the old one, I just saw it! I didn't even know my school is so awesome! We also have one of the best business and law school. GO COUGARS!

You know, I trust my school.
if they claimed that is was Eino geneatically, how can they claim it to be Sidney? if they can claim him to be Sidney, why not Eino? A 14 cm shoe size is more likely to belong to a 13 month old, than a 19 month old, IMO. It wasn't exposed to salt water? Come on! EVERYTHING must have been! The ship sank with 1500 people into the salt water. That analysis could be, and very well is, incorrect, so the shoes managed not to get wet? The ocean is salty, so anyhting submerged in it is exposed to salt water, not matter how small the quantity. My school rocks!

Laura

 

[Timothy Trower]

Laura,

The shoes that are purported to be from the Unknown Child were not exposed to salt water. Ergo, they were never in the ocean. Therefore, the shoes cannot have been from a corpse found floating in the (salt) water of the Atlantic Ocean.

So, it really doesn't matter what size they were, or whose feet they would have fit. Since they were never exposed to salt water, and the corpse of the Unknown Child was found floating in the water, the two pieces of the puzzle have nothing to do with the other.

Quoting from an earlier post of mine on another thread: "But, there are two DNA tests that should have been conducted -- and the second was done only after the results had been made known from the first, less accurate test. The first showed that genetically the child could have been either of the Goodwin family or the Panula family. This test, coupled with the erroneous assumption that the shoes were indeed from the Unknown Child, led Ruffman to conclude that the Unknown Child was Eino.

"When the second round of DNA testing was conducted, it proved conclusively that the Unknown Child was not Eino and that it was Sidney. If the results of the first testing had been withheld until all of the DNA testing was done, then much if not all of the confusion and heartbreak of the mis-identity would have been avoided."

The information that a second, more definitive DNA test had proven that Sidney Goodwin was indeed the Unknown Child was made known by an attendee at the April 2007 Halifax convention. Phil Gowan first made mention of this on the www.Titanic-Titanic.com message board (sadly this thread, and everything for a two month span, was lost during a recent software upgrade), and Phil is not one to go off half-cocked on any issue, let alone one of this import.

So, while the early tests that you refer to infer that Eino Panula was the Unknown Child, further testing should have been done -- and was, eventually. The whole story should be quite telling, if it is ever released.

 

[George L. Lorton]

Little Sidney Goodwin was the unknown Child. OMG!
Knock me over with a feather. I remember reading of the Goodwins in TNLO.

>>The whole story should be quite telling, if it is ever released.<<

I'll say! Thanks Tim for the link.

 

[Hildur Panula-Heinonen]

yo, that just makes the assumption that it is 50/50 as to who it could be. Why would they have bothered to announce that it was Eino, first, if they knew the second test was inconclusive,therefore, knowing they would have to later do an additional test. As for the shoes, i believe they were switched. How else can we account for the dry-with-no-salt-content-shoes-pulled-from-the-salty-Alantic-sea? It just makes more sense that someone wanted to keep them for whatever purpose. I said it once, and will say it again: That child belongs to my family, and his name is Eino Viljami Panula. We all have our own opinion and that is mine.

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

quote:

That child belongs to my family, and his name is Eino Viljami Panula.

As I stated in the other thread to you, Hildur, like it or not, DNA results do not lie. If there wasn't an ounce of truth to this issue, Phil Gowan would not have mentioned it; he's not that type of researcher.

We'll just have to wait and see.​

 

[Melinda Laura Varju]

Ah, it is Sidney Leslie Goodwin! Oh poor baby. Thanks for the reply Tim. Oh poor little baby, really, the GOODWIN family was the first family who I read about when I was 15 and was interested in the Titanic and found this website 5 years ago. Ever since then, I loved Sidney.
But then WHY did they announce it was Eino so loud all over for sure?
Sorry Hildur, I trust these professional researchers. The baby is Sidney Goodwin. He probably looked more like age 2 at 19 months, as did Eino at 13 months.

Laura

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

See Tim's post here, where he already addressed your question, Laura: (Post Number 233)

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5811/119870.html?1178724897

 

[Timothy Trower]

It is really a shame that incomplete DNA tests were used to seemingly rush an identity of the Unknown Child. Painstaking as it may be to follow all protocols correctly, you must do so to avoid a false match.

The family of Eino Panula was given reason -- strong reason -- to believe that young Eino was the body in the grave of the Unknown Child. With all of the publicity and attention given this announcement; with family members attending the grave site for a memorial; with closure being given that family for the loss of that little one -- I can only shake my head that anyone allowed this all to happen without checking both DNA markers.

Now, we have complete test results that show that no, the body is not that of Eino -- oh, sorry, Panula family -- you went through all of that for nothing -- but that of Sidney Goodwin, a child closer in age to what the coroner estimated, and a complete match for the completed DNA testing.

I don't blame Hildur for being upset about the sudden change in the story. I'd be as mad as h--- myself if a team of researchers had lead me down the same path that the Panula family has been forced to trod.

I also don't blame Hildur for not wanting to believe that the Unknown Child isn't her relative, but that of another family. Again, she was told by an authority figure that the child's body was that of Eino, and was no doubt shown the very evidence that supported the claim. Now, that very foundation has been cruelly yanked from beneath her and her family -- the science lied!

The shoes, even if they still had salt incrusted on them, would not have any bearing on the identity of the Unknown Child because the DNA testing is not tied to the shoes, but to the genetic information found in the remains of the child. Allowing the shoes to become supporting evidence was wrong no matter how you slice it. Add to this the simple fact that the shoes were never exposed to salt water, and you have to come to one of two conclusions: a) the body of the Unknown Child was dumped into the ocean head first and continued to float that way with the feet in the air until recovered or b) they have no connection with any Titanic victim.

The villain in this unfortunate case of mistaken identity is anyone who rushed this identity without taking the time to run the second set of DNA testing.

Hildur, I am sorry that this has become an issue, and really regret that you, and your family, have been used as props in this case. Really, the shoes have no bearing on the identity of the Unknown Child. The DNA testing is the key, and I directly challenge Mr. Ruffman to immediately publish the complete story of the identity of Sidney Goodwin and the mis-identity of Eino Panula.

The facts may hurt -- few people like to admit they are wrong -- but Ruffman's silence is only continuing to hurt people like Hildur Panula-Heinonen.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>As for the shoes, i believe they were switched.<<

Hildur, as already stated, the shoes are entirely irrelvant to this mess. They issue is what did the DNA tests reveal and that's where the debate both begins and ends. You could have put a dozen new and old shoes, some soaked in brine and some brand new, and they would not have made a dimes worth of difference since these things not tested. There was no reason for them to be. None. If they had been, the DNA tests would have revealed that cattle had been buried in that grave, not somebody's baby.

The fragments that were tested were that which was beyond any question or doubt human remains.

I don't blame you for being upset about this. Not in the least. I would be too if I were in your position and I would bloody well be demanding some straight up answers to how and why this whole fiasco happened in the first place. The people who messed this up have a thing or dozen to answer for.


Reality, however, is that which persists in being there even though we refuse to believe in it, and the reality here is that the full and properly carried out testing protocols points to Master Sidney Goodwin.

Opinion is irrelevant.

 

[George L. Lorton]

>>The DNA testing is the key, and I directly challenge Mr. Ruffman to immediately publish the complete story of the identity of Sidney Goodwin and the mis-identity of Eino Panula.<<

I second that challenge.

 

[Luke Owens]

>>the science lied<<

Beg to differ, Tim. Science does NOT lie, but scientists can and do. That said, I have to agree with you and Michael about Hildur's reaction. I would be royally ticked off under those circumstances, too. I can't blame her a bit.

Luke

 

[Hildur Panula-Heinonen]

this is a cut version of a google-found page.

HALIFAX - In a city heavy with grief, laden with the task of recovering and burying Titanic's dead, the most poignant moments were reserved for a little boy no one knew.

On a sombre Saturday after the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank off the coast of Newfoundland, hundreds of folks in Halifax crowded into St. George's Anglican Church to mourn the death of an innocent -- a toddler who became known simply as the Unknown Child.

Pallbearers were six of the crew from the Mackay-Bennett, one of the ships from Halifax tasked with the gruesome detail of pulling perished souls from the icy Atlantic. Although 1,523 passengers died when the Titanic went down, the boy was one of the first recovered.

[Moderator's notes: 1. Edited post to remove copyrighted article. 2. For the rest of the story, click on the link below that Hildur refers to. JDT]

What of this?

 

[Hildur Panula-Heinonen]

I am pissed off not over the child's identity, but rather that for years of belief, since i was a very small child, my relatives had told me stories upon stories that Eino had died on Titanic, and my grandmother had told me that she had a feeling that it was Eino in the grave. No lie.
When my family was contacted about DNA, we were told there were three children that DNA descendents would be coming from, from Finland, Sweden and England. Obviously they jumped to conclusion when the first test excluded who they though it was, and that being Gosta. The test had proved with a higher percentage that it was Eino. A second test was considered inconclusive, and in a sense, since they had a name, unworthy, and unimportant.
When my family found out it was Eino, my grandmother told me that she had known it for years. In the few years that followed the identification, they family held strong to the belief, and what seemed to be prove of where our eternal young was buried. On our family records we had actually written down where he was buried next to his name. We took several flights down over time, to grieve, including me and my small sister. We were there on what would have been his 96 birthday in March.
My family was never informed of an additional DNA test. To us it seemed cut and dried. That’s what they told us, and for five years that is what we believed. When I started to read these posts, I thought ‘How ridiculous! Don’t they know it is Eino?’ I told my family and most of them don’t believe it because we have been told and reassured it was Eino. Nothing else. The child is Eino, and no one else. So obviously we believed it and the DNA. My grandmother is very upset after I told here, and actually showed her your posts(hope that doesn’t bother you

)she is upset and can’t understand the meaning behind it. After we have been told so long it was him, and no one else, it seems in a sense to her wrong that suggestions would be made that it was someone else. Surely you can see that from our point of view. I am planning to get to the bottom of this because this has caused so much pain and difficulty in the family. I am personally, and I may not be the only one in my family, possibly planning to sue who ever told us it was him, and failed to inform us of another possibility, and causing my family so much hell. My grandmother is furious and wants the finalized prove, even if it is not Eino. She wants answers and proper and official closure, as do we all.