Rooted by Blood, DNA and a lot of BS: Thanks to Forensic DNA

Beautiful little angel

The other day, my son and I were talking about San Francisco history and he was telling me how the cemetery just outside of San Francisco in the city of Colma started.

It then struck a memory with me - a few years ago, I read about a San Francisco family with 2 young girls of their own, who were doing some renovations to their home in the Lone Mountain, district of San Francsico, when contractors discovered a coffin. When the coffin was found, they called out the city's medical examiner. They found a little girl, around 2 years old in a tightly sealed glass coffin that preserved her remains. She was holding a red rose in her hands. The little girl had long blonde hair and was wearing a long white lace dress - she had a cross made of flowers laying on her chest.

She was buried there - before it was a backyard, of course - 140-150 years ago. All the residences in this neighborhood were built on the former site of a cemetery, owned and operated by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The cemetery accepted burials from 1865 until about 1902. The interred were exhumed in the early 1930s and transferred to Greenlawn Cemetery in Colma, CA.

For unknown reasons, this precious little girl was left behind.

The search started as to who this little girl was - did she have any descendants that were still alive?

The media and public gave her the name Miranda Eve and after all the necessary legal paperwork and DNA samples were taken care of, she was reburied in the Colma cemetery.

Once they were on the right trail, they found the DNA of family members from both sides of her family. One family member agreed to give a DNA sample to match her blonde hair. Strands of hair were obtained from “Miranda Eve” before her reburial for DNA testing. Analysis of nitrogen isotopes, conducted at the University of California, Davis, revealed that she began experiencing undernourishment approximately 3 months before her death. Funeral home records indicate the cause of death was “Marasmus.” Marasmus was a term used in the 1800s for severe undernourishment, a condition which could have had a number of underlying causes, unknown or not fully understood at the time.

Given what is known today about late 1800s urban living, an infectious disease is the most likely cause of her marasmus.

She has a Name -

Analysis of nuclear DNA, which is inherited from both parents, confirmed that “Miranda Eve” was a girl (no Y chromosome DNA fragments are present), and suggested ancestral origins in Western Europe. Her complete mitochondrial DNA (inherited only maternally) was assembled, and it was found that “Miranda
Eve” carried the I1a1e haplotype, most common on the British Isles. An analysis was performed comparing the DNA extracted from the hair sample with that obtained from the living male descendant of the second candidate, Edith Howard Cook. Those samples provided a clear match.

Edith’s grand-nephew. Peter Cook is a direct descendant of her older brother, Milton H. Cook. He lives in the Bay Area. DNA was extracted from the “Miranda Eve” hair samples in the clean room facilities at the university’s Paleogenomics lab using standard ancient DNA techniques.

Amazing work.