title: The Identification of a 1916 Irish Rebel: New Approach for Estimating Relatedness From Low Coverage Homozygous Genomes.
abstract: Thomas Kent was an Irish rebel who was executed by British forces in the aftermath of the Easter Rising armed insurrection of 1916 and buried in a shallow grave on Cork prison's grounds. In 2015, ninety-nine years after his death, a state funeral was offered to his living family to honor his role in the struggle for Irish independence. However, inaccuracies in record keeping did not allow the bodily remains that supposedly belonged to Kent to be identified with absolute certainty. Using a novel approach based on homozygous single nucleotide polymorphisms, we identified these remains to be those of Kent by comparing his genetic data to that of two known living relatives. As the DNA degradation found on Kent's DNA, characteristic of ancient DNA, rendered traditional methods of relatedness estimation unusable, we forced all loci homozygous, in a process we refer to as "forced homozygote approach". The results were confirmed using simulated data for different relatedness classes. We argue that this method provides a necessary alternative for relatedness estimations, not only in forensic analysis, but also in ancient DNA studies, where reduced amounts of genetic information can limit the application of traditional methods.
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|CIAS, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal.|Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fernandes
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|Department of Anthropology, Emory University, 201 Dowman Dr., Atlanta, GA 30322, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kendra
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sirak
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|Institute for Anthropological Research, Ljudevita Gaja 32, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Novak
authors.affiliation: Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|School of Biology and Environment Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Finarelli
authors.affiliation: National Forensic Coordination Office, Garda Technical Bureau, Garda Headquarters, Phoenix Park, Dublin 8, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Byrne
authors.affiliation: Forensic Science Ireland, Garda Headquarters, Phoenix Park, Dublin 8, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Connolly
authors.affiliation: School of Biology and Environment Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|Area 52 Research Group, School of Biology and Environment Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: Jeanette E L
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Carlsson
authors.affiliation: Area 52 Research Group, School of Biology and Environment Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: Edmondo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ferretti
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: Ron
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pinhasi
authors.affiliation: School of Biology and Environment Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.|Area 52 Research Group, School of Biology and Environment Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Carlsson
mesh_terms: D004249:DNA Damage; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005190:Family; D005828:Genetics, Population; D015894:Genome, Human; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D006239:Haplotypes; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006720:Homozygote; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics* / Q000266:history
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial