Like a constipated true crime podcaster, I’m currently perched on the edge of my seat waiting for something solid to emerge. Now that SAPOL’s forensic finest (surely) have the Somerton Man’s DNA in their sweaty hands, what will it be able to tell us?
One interesting thing about DNA searching is that even if you get basically zero hits, the DNA itself can often still tell you a great deal about a person, such as:
- what part of the world they (probably) come from
- their haplogroup (& will that be the same as the haplogroup Derek Abbott’s group retrieved from the hair root?)
- their genetic predisposition to rare illnesses (e.g. uncombable hair syndrome, etc).
If the part of the world the Somerton Man’s DNA comes from is basically a small region in Ireland, it would seem to be a fairly strong indication that Kean[e] is likely to be his surname. (But with Catholic families being DNA genealogists’ best friends, you’d also expect 20+ decent hits to light up the GEDmatch globe like a Christmas tree.)
Yet if his DNA is solidly Eastern European (and with hardly any matches), you’d expect a quite different person – perhaps something like the mysterious Balutz from the baccarat school I found so hard to track down.
Though it would be nice if the DNA showed he was Charles Mikkelsen (who I think was probably also the “Carl Thompsen” remembered by Keith Mangonoson), I’m not holding out a lot of hope for that.
It also seems likely to me that any link to the Abbotts / Egans would have been trumpeted to the world’s media by now: but given the lack of trumpetry my ears are picking up, this is most probably not to be here.
All in all, it’s perhaps surprising that the list of possible Somerton Man candidates we’ve all managed to accumulate is so short: a list dominated, it has to be said, by implausible Soviet spies, defectors and perhaps even spring-heeled Ballet Russe dancers. (Spare me, O Lord, from having to read any more espionage-related posts.)
So I wonder what the next card to be played in this interminable squeeze will be?
Does SAPOL’s forensic finest have SM’s DNA in their sweaty hands? If yes, when will we, the general public, find out? Days, weeks, or months?
Bumpkin: I believe they should have it by now, but when we plebs will even get told the haplogroup etc is not in my crystal ball’s range, sadly. 🙁
My understanding is that with the Golden State Killer they identified him from finding partial DNA matches for some of his distant relatives using ancestry data and from there narrowing down to him through the tree of relatives.
Spare us all My Gawd, from having to suffer through any more Balutz and Mikkelsen-related posts.)
NickP … ‘It also seems likely to me that any link to the Abbotts / Egans would have been trumpeted to the world’s media by now: but given the lack of trumpetry my ears are picking up, this is most probably not to be here.’
Colleen Fitzpatrick PhD, the founder of Identifinders International and finder of the Thomson / Egan DNA line is widely recognized as the founder of modern Forensic Genealogy. She has worked several hundred cold case homicides for law enforcement using genetic genealogy analysis.
Her trumpet should be loud enough.
https://www.apgen.org/users/colleen-fitzpatrick
Peteb : I’m wondering did Colleen Fitzpatrick decide that Paul Lawson’s bust hairs traced back to Tom Jefferson, or conversely, was she only connecting Robin Thomson’s progeny’s RNA/DNA to the dead president’s lineage.
Heh, I’m right there with you, Nick. Klaus and I are actually getting ready to give a talk soon that will include a section on the Somerton Man. So we are standing by, PowerPoint slides at the ready! If nothing new is learned by the time of our talk, we’ll at least say that more information may soon by forthcoming!
Elonka: it’s really hard to know how this will go. For instance, I can’t rule out the scenario where SAPOL’s in-house forensic genealogists hit problems early on and thrash about with it for a couple of years before going public with their indeterminate results. At the same time, I can’t really understand why they wouldn’t put out a press release now detailing the absolute basics of the DNA evidence (i.e. its haplogroup, likely population spread), and run with the familial stuff separately. If it’s just “North Atlantic” (i.e. a “Britisher”, as they put it at the time), why not just say that? It’s not as if that’s going to change any time soon. *sigh*
Dare I admit it never occurred to me that potential identities might overlap without being SM (e.g. I agree Thompsen could be Mikkelsen, but I never really thought about that being the case without him also being SM).
milongal: car thief / ex-jockey / baccarat school nitkeeper / spurned lover / Ballet Russe dancer / uranium spy / random passerby, feel free to pick whichever combination amuses you most.
Having said all that, the smart money should probably be on “none of the above”, because History has a nasty habit of making fools of those who try to second-guess her strangely intricate ways.
NickP .. You forgot to mention artisan: the tools fitted there as well.
…or how about a travelling Jewish apparel seller (ties, socks and underwear) who dipped out on his b’nai mitzvah party back home and signed aboard a 5th fleeter bound for Oz in ’47. That’d work.
Milongal: Keith Mangnussen’s recall of his friendship with Carl Thompsen when they were clearing mulga out in the mallee country doesn’t seem to fit any porthole of opportunity for his old mate of 1939 to have been one with Charles Mikkelsen who was supposed to be at sea on the Anten through most of the year.
@JS: The beauty of Mikkelsen is he was such a bodgey character (jumping ships and the like) we can’t believe he was ever where they said he was. Hell, I’ll even believe he was never killed on the boat, and simply swapped his identity for someone who was.
Oh wait, now I’m becoming the conspiracy theorist 😛
milongal: A bit off line, but it was Phil Mickelson what just won the US open last week right, same time you brought near name sake Charles Mikkelsen back to life, just like Phil after a lengthy hiatus from his former glory. We recall that Charles was a golfer too, though also a bit off his game after a burst apendix left him with an infection at the op. scar, only to be expected and par for the course in the tropics.
Sanders […] uncircumcised tool […] slick of dry precum […] bla bla bla
Snelling { snort } – stop cutting me off and censoring my words. { Errm: no. } I am the heavy breasted Russian Jewish lover of Jestyn. […] gnarled baps off the floor […] distended, very long nipples […] mootjuice […] prolapsed twat like pond slime. […] dirty old catheter. […] murdered Somerton Man […] orgasms […] fucked my ass with her cane. Thankyou. { Errm: the pleasure’s all yours, I’m sure. }
Lady Janet Adelaide (Dunleath?). Uncirculated tool (virginal) & slick stick of juicy fruit (cum gum) ga ga ga!……
DM: wonder how you and fellow punters, feel now that Abbott and Fitzpatrick have seemingly gone into smoke and contemplating a bleak future without Carl Webb as a fallback. How well each played their part in setting up mass media, titilating long suffering frustrated bloggers, then suddenly breaking news of the ID to acclaim and relief to those who had given up in dispair long ago. It be all credit to their combined guile and wit to have pulled the wool over the eyes of all who had it coming albeit “with a little help from their (Facebook) friends”.
In hindsight, If only we had looked back to when the very same pair conspired to hoodwink all into believing that Robin Thomson be son of ‘Sam’ and that his daughter Rachel Egan be inheritor to any later confirmed ID surname whether it be Mikkelsen, Thompsen, Phillips, Fedosimov, anything but Salomonson, it being Jewish stated Derek in 2012. SM susupect John Salomonson was Catholic.