Unidentified bodies

[Beckie Goodwin]

Does anyone have any information on how it was determined which unidentified bodies were
buried at sea and which were buried in one of the Halifax cemeteries. Fairview and the other
cemeteries have quite a few buried with no identification. Any information would be helpful.

Beckie

 

[Michael Findlay]

Dear Beckie,

Unidentified bodies that were badly decomposed were the ones that were selected to be buried at sea. When relatives on land learned what was happening, there was an outcry. White Star officials wired that all remaining bodies were to be retained, regardless of condition, and brought to shore.

Michael Findlay

 

[Anita Dahlberg (Anita)]

I've been reading the list of unidentified bodies, and it seems to me that there's a lot of information that could identify several of the bodies. Does anyone know how much work they put in this? Are there any of this list been identified today?

 

[Christophe Puttemans]

Description of unidentified bodies
These descriptions are different from the ones given in The Nova Scotia archives. They seem, in general, more detailed than the archives. Where can I find the detailed description of all bodies, also the identified ones?

 

[Talira Greycrest]

In a dream I had on the 100th anniversary, I could have sworn one of the victims was trying to tell me that her body (or the body of one of her sisters) had been recovered but never identified. It so sad to know that so many bodies remain unidentified. There are graves with no names on them, just numbers and the date of death. Surely there must be some way we can identify these people. They deserve to have their names on their headstones.

 

[Keith Baxter]

... Surely there must be some way we can identify these people...

There are several threads on this subject from (approximately) 2001 related to exhumations that attempted to identify a small number of victims through DNA testing. Unfortunately, because of drainage in the cemetery, there was little or nothing left of some of them.
Forensic Identification of Titanic Victims

Otherwise, if DNA could have been obtained, I think the science of DNA and availability of tests has advanced so much that there would not be much doubt that relatives could be found for all of them. Millions of people have now had DNA tests performed by companies like AncestryDNA (who are apparently about to reach 3 million people tested on their own), FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, and LivingDNA.
DNA for Genealogy

 

[JACQLINE]

Tattoos, jewelry, clothing, dental work... and still so many people went unrecognized or unclaimed. This is incredibly sad. But my best guess is for many families, it was either cost prohibitive for family members to seek out the bodies or it was a language barrier problem, or both. With the passage of years, fewer living relatives would even be around to make the effort. Today, antecedents simply wouldn't know enough about a great grandparent's life to make a connection. DNA would be the only hope. Unfortunately, it's been 107 years and bodies have disintegrated.

I also got to thinking about my own family. I have no children and a deceased husband. I have no tattoos. I do have living siblings. If I had died in a disaster back in 1912, could my closest sister identify me based on what I was wearing? Not likely. We are middle aged women and haven't lived in the same house for 40 years. She doesn't know what I wear from day to day, including jewelry. I suspect the same problems arose among many family members of Titanic victims.

Of course, now we have DNA. But we still must hope there's enough to identify, unlike so many after 9/11.

 

[Scott Mills]

I love that I am posting in a thread that's 25 years old here.

In any case, I wanted to come here and comment because for the first time I spent some time looking at the descriptions of some of the unidentified victims; and I found myself wondering... many of these victims were found with some very specific items that one would have thought would have made identification of the bodies easy--at least in 1912.

For example:

Body 21: He was found with a paper that read "Dec. to Jan. 1911; First saloon waiter S. Majestic;" and a key marked "locker 8 'E' Deck." On the surface it seems like this is a person who served first saloon waiter on Majestic from December 1910 to January 1911, and had a key to locker 8 located on E deck on Titanic. Wouldn't it be the case that White Star would of had some sort of record, if not of the final disposition of the crew on Titanic and who was assigned access to what locker, who the first saloon waiter on Majestic had been during 1910 and 1911?

Body 44: Had the initials FWL on his cloths and had a key to the C Deck linen locker. Again, seems like White Star Line could have figured out who this was.

Body 71: Was wearing a coat marked "hospital attendant" and had a key ring with the name "Mrs. Van Push," and an address in New York City.

Body 141: Is marked as being about 50; has a moustache; is wearing a white coat; and has keys marked 'Butcher.' Well there was only a single butcher on Titanic of that age and that description who was not saved. Seems like this would have been a pretty easy ID even in 1912.

Body 264: Had tickets for second class staterooms D51 - D89. I think a fair assumption would be he is the steward serving those rooms. Even if White Star Line did not have a written record ashore of who had been assigned those rooms for this voyage, one could have just asked any surviving passengers from those rooms--if I am not mistaken Lawrence Beesley was in D-56--"who was your steward?"

So, I am not going to go through all of them here today, but many of these bodies were found with addresses (one was found with a filled out post-card with an address)... how hard would it have been to send people to, or at least write to, these addresses and ask whether or not anyone there knew anyone sailing on, or serving on Titanic?

 

[Seumas]

I love that I am posting in a thread that's 25 years old here.

In any case, I wanted to come here and comment because for the first time I spent some time looking at the descriptions of some of the unidentified victims; and I found myself wondering... many of these victims were found with some very specific items that one would have thought would have made identification of the bodies easy--at least in 1912.

For example:

Body 21: He was found with a paper that read "Dec. to Jan. 1911; First saloon waiter S. Majestic;" and a key marked "locker 8 'E' Deck." On the surface it seems like this is a person who served first saloon waiter on Majestic from December 1910 to January 1911, and had a key to locker 8 located on E deck on Titanic. Wouldn't it be the case that White Star would of had some sort of record, if not of the final disposition of the crew on Titanic and who was assigned access to what locker, who the first saloon waiter on Majestic had been during 1910 and 1911?

Body 44: Had the initials FWL on his cloths and had a key to the C Deck linen locker. Again, seems like White Star Line could have figured out who this was.

Body 71: Was wearing a coat marked "hospital attendant" and had a key ring with the name "Mrs. Van Push," and an address in New York City.

Body 141: Is marked as being about 50; has a moustache; is wearing a white coat; and has keys marked 'Butcher.' Well there was only a single butcher on Titanic of that age and that description who was not saved. Seems like this would have been a pretty easy ID even in 1912.

Body 264: Had tickets for second class staterooms D51 - D89. I think a fair assumption would be he is the steward serving those rooms. Even if White Star Line did not have a written record ashore of who had been assigned those rooms for this voyage, one could have just asked any surviving passengers from those rooms--if I am not mistaken Lawrence Beesley was in D-56--"who was your steward?"

So, I am not going to go through all of them here today, but many of these bodies were found with addresses (one was found with a filled out post-card with an address)... how hard would it have been to send people to, or at least write to, these addresses and ask whether or not anyone there knew anyone sailing on, or serving on Titanic?

I don't think you'll find much disagreement that # 71 was that of the ship's hospital steward William Durnford. His ET biography also has this identification.

# 141 was subsequently identified as Arthur Maytum and his grave in Fairview Lawn is marked as such.

I'm scratching my head as to how even in 1912 they never put two and two together and realised that # 170 is pretty obviously that of the ship's joiner John Hutchison.

# 257 is unidentified but was either an engineer or an electrician. If the scribe had taken note of whether this unfortunate bloke had one, two or three rings on his rank insignia this would really help narrow down who it could be.