CSI Medieval: Fingerprints of the Past

"Historical research using forensic fingerprinting techniques on the wax seals of thousands of medieval documents will reveal new insights into 12th to 14th century British society, help determine how unique fingerprints truly are, and uncover medieval crime."

This is what a research project called Imprint will be doing. The team will carefully examine fingerprints and palm prints left behind on the wax seals of documents from the 12th to 14th Centuries. 

Any fingerprints lifted from the wax will be compared to modern fingerprints to see if there are similarities across the generations. There is much more to this unique project so please continue reading CSI Medieval: researchers to uncover forensic secrets of Britain’s historic wax seals

Building An Ancestor's Face from DNA Could be Possible One Day

I love new technology! Can you imagine one day perhaps being able to reconstruct the faces of our ancestors from DNA? Don't scoff. It may be a reality. 

Scientists have been using a technique called "molecular photo fitting" to reconstruct faces of criminals, based on genetic markers from their DNA.

In a BBC series called Catching History's Criminals: The Forensics Story, this technology offers the prospect of generating a face from nothing more than a few cells. In the Forensic world this means that a few cells of DNA left at the scene of a crime would allow the criminal's face to be reconstructed. 

In an experiment the face of Surgeon Gabriel Weston was reconstructed using nothing more than DNA from her saliva. It's a pretty uncanny likeness and you can see the results at Building the face of a criminal from DNA on BBC News.
 

Leith Skeletons Hold Tantalizing Clues to the Past

A 5 year project to rebuild the faces of almost 400 men, women and children discovered in a section of the South Leith Parish Church’s graveyard has yielded intriguing results.

The website Edinburgh News informs us that "One skeleton, of a woman aged between 25 and 35 who died anywhere between 1360 and 1435, was found to be 4ft 11in, 1.5 inches shorter than the average height for a medieval woman. She was found in a mass grave along with two other women and a child, but it is still unclear if this was related to the plague or some other infectious disease.A boy, aged between 13 and 17, was also found and estimated to have died between 1393 and 1445."
 
Read more at Buried secrets of medieval Leith uncovered

U.S.S. Monitor (Sank in 1862) Sailors’ Remains to Be Buried With Honors

Civil War sailors perished in an 1862 storm after making military history.

A funeral service for two unknown sailors who died when the Monitor went down off the coast of North Carolina was held in Arlington Virginia. The Monitor's 63-member crew included sailors born in Wales and Scotland, as well as African-Americans who were former slaves.

 The remains of two sailors, recovered when part of the iconic warship was raised in 2002, were buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. The faces of the two unknown U.S.S. Monitor sailors were re-created by forensic anthropologists.

 Continue reading and view the forensic reconstruction