Skeletons of four doomed Franklin Expedition sailors identified with DNA
May 7, 2026
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Skeletons of four doomed Franklin expedition sailors identified using DNA
The latest studies bring the number of identified remains from this doomed 1845 expedition to six out of the 129 that left for the Arctic.
API / Contributor / Getty Images
Researchers used DNA from the skeletal remains of four members of the ill-fated 1845 Franklin expedition to explore the Arctic to identify the dead for the first time.
The expedition was a years-long effort to find the Northwest Passage, an ice-free path connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans across the Arctic. Led by British explorer John Franklin, the expedition involved two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. During their journey north, both ships became stuck in the ice off King William Island in the Canadian Arctic. Franklin himself died in 1847. And in 1848, the remaining 105 men of the crew decided to try crossing the sea ice from the island to the Canadian mainland. They all perished.
“It must have been horrible,” says Douglas Stenton, an archaeologist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “It was probably -30 [degrees] Celsius [–22 degrees Fahrenheit]and these men were not in good health after three years in the Arctic.
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Denton is the lead author of a new study in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports which identifies three of the dead found on King William Island: William Orren, an able seaman; David Young, a young seaman, first class, who was 17 when he signed up for the voyage; and John Bridgens, a steward of subordinate officers. All came from Erebus and had joined the expedition in London.
Archaeologist Douglas Stenton of the University of Waterloo excavated remains at Erebus Bay in 2013. This cache of bones included those of the newly identified John Bridgens.
The remains of the fourth man were found further south, and Denton says a forthcoming study in the journal Polar record identifies him as Harry Peglar, who sailed on HMS Terror. All identifications were made by comparing DNA extracted from the remains to that of living relatives.
HMS Erebus And Terror were heavily reinforced with iron plates and were equipped with steam engines for more power and additional provisions. But a note from the ships’ officers found in a stone cairn indicated that they had become stuck in the ice in late 1846 and that Franklin and 23 others had died by April 1848, when the survivors attempted to march south. (Scientific American in 1849 he published an article about a planned effort to try to find the missing men, then, in 1880, he published an account of a search expedition to find the remains of the crew, then presumed deceased, which you can read here, )
The remains of at least 23 members of the doomed expedition have now been found, and the same researchers previously identified two of them using DNA. The latest studies bring the number of people positively identified so far to six.
“These three new identifications… provide a better understanding of what happened shortly after the survivors deserted the country. Erebus And Terror», write the researchers in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports study.
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