I acquired a Remington 1858 New Army 2 years ago. There was an assortment of personal effects included with the purchase belonging to the original owner. One such item was a lead ball said to have been pulled from the gentleman's arm during the civil war. I didn't have to search long to find an 1863 issue of the Iowa Hawkeye Gazette detailing this particular skirmish by one of the survivors. In the letter, he mentioned by name this particular gentleman being struck and wounded in the arm. Another article mentions that this gentleman kept the lead ball as a souvenir.

In a glass vial, I have the apparent lead ball. It's deformed with debris embedded within. Is it possible to perform a DNA test to determine the authenticity of the claim? If so, whats the best course of action?

Sure it's possible, and I'm sure there are independent labs able to do it. But the question is do you have any DNA to compare it to? You're never going to know if it is definitely his DNA unless you have a sample.

If you have a family line then they could certainly compare to that and give you probabilities.

You'd need a sample from the gentleman who was wounded or his known descendants for comparison, wouldn't you?

As long as there's tissue, there's DNA.
The will be some degradation.

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
The will be some degradation.

Perhaps more than some.

The question is how much tissue is still on the ball, if any.

To what end? Prove that the ball you have really was the one that shot him?

For a DNA test - you need DNA from the original source. Unless you have a time machine - this would be difficult to obtain.

It was demonstrated (twice?) just recently that DNA from an unknown source can be linked to that of other donors in public databases to sometimes learn familial relationships.

The biggest problem in this case is that unless the bullet was stored under very unlikely conditions all these years, including long before anyone had the slightest inkling of what information DNA could reveal, it’s equally unlikely that usable DNA would be recovered from it. Even the fact that it was probably handled by countless people besides the original gunshot victim would have hopelessly contaminated whatever might be recovered from its surface.* And that doesn’t consider how much the original DNA would have degraded over time due to heat and other environmental conditions.

* I reread the original post. If the ball was sealed in a glass container shortly after it was recovered, that would improve the chances of its retaining recoverable DNA, but even then I suspect it is likely that it originally bore the DNA of more than the original victim.

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
For a DNA test - you need DNA from the original source. Unless you have a time machine - this would be difficult to obtain.

No, you just need a family member to prove that it was from someone in that family, which would give you a very high probability it was from that man.

That's how several killers have been caught recently - family members uploading DNA samples to public databases for genealogy research.

The question is if there is any DNA still on that lead ball and if there are any known surviving family members willing to give a DNA sample for comparison.

***Oops, sigfreund - I was typing as you posted**

I know a teeny-tiny bit about this since I'm serving as a Casualty Affairs Officer for the family of a pilot who's remains we recently recovered from LAOS.

Anyway, as others have said, 1st you have to find a DNA sample on the ball. Then it has to be not degraded enough that you can test it and get results back. Then it needs to be compared to a family member's DNA.

The probabilities on my pilot's DNA as compared to his 2 sisters that it was him vs. an un-related stranger was something like over a thousand times more likely it was him.

What would the probabilities be comparing a Civil War vet's DNA to a distant relative now? I'm guessing slim...if the sample is even viable.

Just last week I finished up an article on genealogical testing and cold cases. It's with an editor at the moment and should be released next week. What you are talking about here really isn't much different except that you don't have much else to go on (compared to a crime scene).

I reworded a paragraph of the article here to apply to the situation you described...

Investigators working on cold cases submit previously gathered DNA evidence from a crime scene to direct to consumer (DTC) genealogy testing services. These services then return information about the DNA makeup of the submitted sample such as ancestry composition and individuals who may share similar DNA. Such information enables an investigator to identify possible family members of the sample donor and create an extended family tree. These relatives represent a list of potential leads investigators can follow in conjunction with other information to help them identify the identity of the sample.

After that long, the DNA may have degraded beyond analysis.

quote:

Originally posted by lopezp:
It's deformed with debris embedded within.

fabric or genetic material (or perhaps both)?