Centre de recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
Laboratoire de recherche en criminalistique, Département de chimie, biochimie et sciences de l'énergie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Canada.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2020 Apr;171(4):645-658. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24024. Epub 2020 Feb 16.
We describe a method to identify human remains excavated from unmarked graves in historical Québec cemeteries by combining parental-lineage genetic markers with the whole-population genealogy of Québec contained in the BALSAC database.
The remains of six men were exhumed from four historical cemeteries in the province of Québec, Canada. DNA was extracted from the remains and genotyped to reveal their mitochondrial and Y-chromosome haplotypes, which were compared to a collection of haplotypes of genealogically-anchored modern volunteers. Maternal and paternal genealogies were searched in the BALSAC genealogical record for parental couples matching the mitochondrial and the Y-chromosome haplotypic signatures, to identify candidate sons from whom the remains could have originated.
Analysis of the matching genealogies identified the parents of one man inhumed in the cemetery of the investigated parish during its operating time. The candidate individual died in 1833 at the age of 58, a plausible age at death in light of osteological analysis of the remains.
This study demonstrates the promising potential of coupling genetic information from living individuals to genealogical data in BALSAC to identify historical human remains. If genetic coverage is increased, the genealogical information in BALSAC could enable the identification of 87% of the men (n = 178,435) married in Québec before 1850, with high discriminatory power in most cases since >75% of the parental couples have unique biparental signatures in most regions. Genotyping and identifying Québec's historical human remains are a key to reconstructing the genomes of the founders of Québec and reinhuming archeological remains with a marked grave.
我们描述了一种方法，通过将父系遗传标记与包含在 BALSAC 数据库中的魁北克全人群系谱相结合，来识别从历史上魁北克无标记坟墓中挖掘出来的人类遗骸。
从加拿大魁北克省的四个历史公墓中挖掘出六具男性遗骸。从遗骸中提取 DNA 并进行基因分型，以揭示其线粒体和 Y 染色体单倍型，然后将其与经过基因系谱锚定的现代志愿者的单倍型集合进行比较。在 BALSAC 系谱记录中搜索母系和父系系谱，以找到与线粒体和 Y 染色体单倍型特征匹配的父母对，从而确定可能的儿子，这些儿子可能是遗骸的来源。
对匹配系谱的分析确定了在调查的教区公墓中埋葬的一个男人的父母。候选个体于 1833 年去世，享年 58 岁，这与遗骸的骨骼分析相符。
本研究证明了将来自活体个体的遗传信息与 BALSAC 中的系谱数据相结合，以识别历史人类遗骸的潜在前景。如果遗传覆盖率增加，BALSAC 中的系谱信息可以识别出 1850 年前在魁北克结婚的 87%的男性（n=178435），在大多数情况下具有很高的辨别力，因为在大多数地区，>75%的父母对具有独特的双亲特征。对魁北克历史人类遗骸进行基因分型和识别是重建魁北克创始人基因组和重新埋葬有标记坟墓的考古遗骸的关键。
