In October 2001, the remains of an unidentified individual were discovered in Detroit, Michigan. The partially-skeletonized remains were found by workers who were removing debris from a vacant dwelling. It was determined that the remains were that of a Black male who was between the ages of 35 and 50 years. The man was estimated to be 5’10” tall and had black hair with kinky curls. It was estimated that the man had died months prior to the discovery of his remains. The man could not be identified and details of the cases were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP8239.

In April 2023, the Detroit Police Department teamed with Othram to determine if advanced DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy could help generate new leads and assist with identifying the unknown man. Forensic evidence was submitted to Othram’s laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas where Othram scientists successfully developed a DNA extract from the forensic evidence and used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the unknown man. Othram’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team then used this profile to conduct genealogy research, ultimately providing new investigative leads to law enforcement.

Using these new leads, a follow-up investigation was launched leading to potential family members of the unidentified man. The follow-up investigation led to a potential relative of the man, who provided a reference DNA sample. The potential relative's DNA profile was compared to the DNA profile developed for the unknown man using KinsSNP® Rapid Relationship Testing. This investigation led to the identification of the man as Viktor Dickson, who was born in December of 1956.

The identification of Viktor Dickson represents the 14th case in the State of Michigan where officials have publicly announced the identification of an individual using technology developed by Othram. Visit DNASolves to learn about other Michigan cases.

The Israel State Archives released a searchable digital collection on Monday of 380,000 pages from the 1961 Jerusalem trial of SS officer and Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann.

The Israeli government is making the documents available to the public to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The pages uploaded to an advanced search engine include testimony, lists, photographs, court files, and correspondence between the State Attorney’s Office and then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

Israel Police compiled the “Bureau 06” materials for the 1961 trial. Bureau 06 was a team formed to investigate and prepare the State of Israel’s charges against Eichmann.

Among the materials is the testimony of Holocaust survivor Yehiel De-Nur (Ka-Tsetnik), who collapsed during the trial and could not testify in court but recounted the horrors of Auschwitz and his chilling encounter with Eichmann to the police.

De-Nur described his horrific transport to the Nazi concentration camp in Poland, the deadly selections, and his haunting encounter with Eichmann, whose gaze he described as “hypnotic and terrifying,” comparing it to looking through “the eyeholes of the death’s-head [symbol] on his cap.”

The collection is accessible online via the Israel State Archive website, along with a video link to De-Nur’s courtroom collapse.

Florida authorities are looking to connect with the family of a woman whose body was found more than 40 years ago in Brevard County, hoping to learn her identity.

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office connected with the DNA Doe Project in 2019 to help build a DNA profile for the woman.

Who is Jane Doe?

The backstory:

The woman's body was found in October 1980 in Brevard County, according to the DNA Doe Project. Officials said her case is being investigated as a homicide, though the woman's identity has been a mystery for more than 40 years.

Officials said the woman had previously been arrested in Pinellas County, though she reportedly gave a fake name, date of birth, and social security number. She was later found dead in Brevard County. Officials said she had been shot.

In 2019, her remains were given to the DNA Doe Project, who established a DNA profile for her.

According to the DNA Doe Project, the woman was 5' 6" tall, weighed 120 pounds, and was estimated to be between 21 and 30 years old at the time of her death.

The DNA Doe Project is encouraging anyone who recognizes this woman to contact them at case-tips@dnadoeproject.org.

Our news partners at FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported that the woman may have lived in Clearwater, Florida, in the 1970s.

Finding Jane Doe's family tree

What we know:

Teams at DNA Doe Project are using the woman's DNA to try and find her family tree and where her relatives may live. They've traced a branch to Anson, North Carolina, which is southeast of Charlotte – and nearly 8 hours from Orlando, Florida.

From there, they need the public's help. 

They've asked anyone who may have lived in Anson, North Carolina in the 70s and recognized the woman to contact DNA Doe Project via email, case-tips@dnadoeproject.org. 

"African Americans are underrepresented in the DNA databases we use, so it's been slow going," said Jenny Lecus, co-lead on the woman's case, in a prepared statement.

They're encouraging people who've taken DNA tests, through sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.com, to upload them to databases they use: GEDmatch.com or FamilyTreeDNA.com.

 "We really need more members of the public to upload to help us fill in the gaps and connect the dots between her genetic relatives and our Jane Doe," Lecus said in a statement.

What is the DNA Doe Project?

The DNA Doe Project is a volunteer organization that seeks to identify John Does and Jane Does – and return their remains to their families, a news release said.

They use DNA and genealogy to identify unknown persons by looking into their biological relatives.

The Source: This story was written based on information shared by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and the DNA Doe Project.

A man has been arrested in connection to the 1989 murder of a Washington woman, the Everett Police Department announced on Tuesday. 

Mary Ann Daniels, a 33-year-old disabled woman, was found murdered in her home on the 2100 block of Hoyt Avenue on Feb. 1, 1989. The EPD said she had been placed into the transitional living housing by her caseworker.

In the following years, the case went cold. However, in the decades since her murder, advancements in DNA technology were able to open new doors and played a crucial role in identifying the suspect.

Detectives said that Joseph Andrew Jacquez, a former resident of Everett, was identified through Forensic Genetic Genealogy from biological material left on Daniels' body. 

DNA from the murder weapon was also linked to Jacquez.

“I want to commend our police department and our partner agencies for their dedication to getting justice for victims like Mary Ann,” said Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin. “My heart goes out to Mary Ann’s loved ones as they continue to grieve her loss.”

Everett Police Chief John DeRousse praised the efforts of the investigators, saying, "Our investigators diligently pursue justice for the victims of violent crime in our community. We are thankful for Detective Logothetti's perseverance in this investigation. Due to her hard work, this suspect will be held accountable nearly 36 years later."

The Everett Police Department worked with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to apprehend Jacquez. Mary Ann's family shared their feelings on the identification and remembered their sister.

Mary Ann Daniels, 33, was murdered in Everett, Wash. in 1989. Developments in genetic genealogy have led to the identification of a possible killer. ( Photo via Everett Police Dept.)

“I appreciate all the hard work and dedication that Detective Logothetti and others put into finding the person who murdered my sister," said Sandi Daniels Lundin.

"She faced unfortunate circumstances while living in a transitional rental house which her social worker placed her in. She should have protected her from this happening, but instead put her in danger, and in the end, Mary Ann lost her life. She had a hard life and is now at peace. Thanks to all that made this happen.” Daniels Lundin continued.

“Mary Ann was trusting, carefree and always believed the good in people. She has never been forgotten by her family," said Terry Lee Saline, Mary Ann's brother.

Jacquez has been charged with first-degree murder. He was booked into jail in Clark County, Nevada, and will be extradited to Snohomish County.

A Canadian woman inherited a large sum of money from a stranger she had never heard of, uncovering a surprising family connection after the death of retired flight attendant. Raymond Barry Howson, who lived in Twickenham, England, passed away at the age of 85 without a will or known next of kin, Cheshire Live reported. Born in Altrincham, Raymond never married or had children, leaving his estate unclaimed. 

Finders International, a probate genealogy firm, was enlisted to trace his heirs, ultimately identifying 47 beneficiaries across the globe, including Lorraine Gesell, whose mother had emigrated from England to Canada in 1951.

Lorraine Gesell initially doubted the legitimacy of the inheritance, fearing it might be a scam. However, Finders International provided detailed evidence of her extended family tree, confirming that her maternal grandfather was the brother of Raymond's mother.

Lorraine is now among the heirs sharing the £400,000 (nearly $500,000) estate, which includes assets like Raymond's two-bedroom flat in Twickenham.

The estate, divided among the identified beneficiaries in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, prevents the assets from reverting to the UK Treasury under Bona Vacantia laws.

Lorraine plans to use her inheritance for home improvements and is grateful for the genealogists' efforts.

Today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the German Nazi concentrationand extermination camp. It is also International Holocaust Memorial Day, and I, like so many others whose family intertwines with this dark chapter of history, am thinking about family members that perished during the Holocaust.

As fewer and fewer people who experienced the Holocaust are with us to tell their stories, preserving the memory of the victims and helping to tell the stories of survivors is more important than ever. Survivors like 103-year-old Margot Friedländer, whose family were killed in Auschwitz and who has spent the last decade helping people understand the lessons of the past, while stressing the importance of humanity, responsibility and compassion in the face of hate and intolerance.

This year, the decade-long partnership between the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archive and Google Arts & Culture supports and amplifies the Memorial’s vital digitization efforts that will commemorate and share stories of victims and survivors of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. Today we are publishing a selection of previously unseen artworks created in secret by prisoners like Halina Ołomucka and Jerzy Zieleziński that document the unimaginable suffering, but also reveal hope and resilience. This is the first step in a project to digitize thousands of artifacts that tell the devastating experiences of those who suffered in Auschwitz.

Through a $1 million Google.org grant we are also supporting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation's development of the "Auschwitz in Front of Your Eyes" project, which will make the museum’s live online guided tour experience accessible to everyone, everywhere. Our support will help evolve the technological platform and its accessibility, including introducing live captioning and AI-based translation into multiple languages, as well as partnering with schools to increase access for students.

This work builds on past Google and Google Arts & Culture work with organizations like Yad Vashem, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Polish History Museum and the Jewish Museum Berlin to preserve and amplify the stories, history and experiences of Jewish people and others impacted by the horrors of the Holocaust.

I am humbled to join the commemoration event held today at the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, with the remaining survivors in attendance. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum will stream the event on its YouTube channel.

We remain committed to our shared responsibility to promote Holocaust remembrance to ensure the past is not forgotten.

To mark International Holocaust Memorial Day, the Wiener Holocaust Library, one of the largest Nazi-era archives in the world, has launched a new online portal putting over 150,000 pages of evidence of the Holocaust and those who resisted it at the hands of researchers worldwide.

This project, to transform a unique physical collection to a cutting edge, digitised resource, is the largest and most ambitious of its kind anywhere in the UK. This new online portal, Wiener Digital Collections, provides free access to crucial documents, photos, transcripts, and testimonies that have been digitised over the past three years.

It launches with over 150,000 digitised images relating to 10,000 records evidencing the genocide of Europe’s Jews and the stories of the individuals and groups who tried to warn Europe of what was to follow in the face of antisemitic persecution. Online access to this archive of resistance will allow people all over the world to peer back into this tumultuous period of history. The work to digitise collections from this vast archive will continue, and the availability of documents and photographs online will grow over the coming years – at a rate of 100,000 pages per year.

This website allows readers around the world to access digital copies of many of the Library’s most important collections. These include the Jewish Central Information Office’s reports on the growth of antisemitism in Europe in the 1930s, as well as documents donated to the library by the Nuremberg war crimes trial authorities in return for the support the Library gave to prosecutors. Numerous photographic collections, for example photographs of Łódź ghetto, sit alongside published materials, for instance a selection of anti-Nazi writings with innocuous covers to escape censorship.

Wiener Digital Collections’ state-of-the-art viewer allows users to find the materials they want easily. It is an important tool for promoting Holocaust research and education, and for combatting the rising tide of antisemitism

Dr Toby Simpson, Director of the Library: “The Wiener Holocaust Library’s collections were gathered with an unparalleled urgency. For the Jewish refugees who built our archives, documentation was often a matter of life and death. The importance of our mission, to serve as a Library of record of the Holocaust, has hardly receded since then. The need to defend the truth has been given new urgency by the resurgence of antisemitism and other forms of misinformation and hatred.

Wiener Digital Collections provides a keystone resource for Holocaust research and education. By placing a wealth of evidence freely available online we are ensuring that the historical record is available for all regardless of their location, prior knowledge or means.”

Some of the collections now accessible online for the first time include:

• Tarnschriften (or ‘hidden writings’) were everyday pamphlets and books cleverly concealing anti-Fascist propaganda, so it could be distributed and shared among a population kept in the dark by a totalitarian regime and an unfree press. These skilfully camouflaged pamphlets, disguised as advertisments for cosmetics or shampoo, recipe books and even instruction manuals for housewives, offer a unique insight into the scale of anti-Nazi resistance in the Third Reich. The Library’s, now fully digitised, collection of almost 500 of these pamphlets is the largest outside of Germany.

• Valuable materials about fascist and anti-fascist movements in the UK including documents relating to the Battle of Cable Street, the rise of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, and Jewish anti-fascist groups which organised against the far right in Britain both before and after the Second World War. As extremist far-right figures threaten Europe and elsewhere, these collections reveal not only the origins of these dangerous ideologies, but the motivations and strategies of those throughout history who have kept them at bay.

• Nuremberg War Crimes Trials documents – This collection, donated to the library by the Nuremberg War Crimes trial authorities, comprises authenticated copies and translations into English of Nuremberg War Crimes trial documents which specifically relate to the fate of Europe’s Jews. It was donated to the Library as a quid pro quo for assistance provided to the prosecutors at the trials, and remains one of the institution’s most well used collections.

• Photographs of Auschwitz-Birkenau – Holocaust Memorial Day this year marks 80 years since the Liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army. This month visitors to the site can access photographs of the liberation.

About the Wiener Holocaust Library:

Based in London, The Wiener Holocaust Library is the world’s oldest and Britain’s largest collection of original archival material on pre-war Jewish life, the Nazi era and the Holocaust.

The Wiener is home to hundreds of thousands of documents, letters, photographs, press cuttings, books, pamphlets, periodicals and unpublished manuscripts and memoirs, posters, artworks, and eyewitness testimonies.

Wiener Digital Collections enables online access to some of our most important collections, including documents used in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials, the family papers of Jewish refugees, photos taken at the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, JCIO reports, and responses to Nazism and fascism in Germany, Britain and beyond.

On January 21st, the Filecoin Foundation announced a partnership with leading organizations like Smithsonian Institution, Flickr Foundation, Internet Archive, MIT Open Learning, and Starling Lab to safeguard over 500,000 culturally significant digital artifacts on the Filecoin network. From Alexander Graham Bell's earliest sound recordings to Flickr Commons' most viewed photographs, these datasets highlight the transformative power of decentralized storage in protecting humanity's history. By ensuring data integrity, provenance, and accessibility, Filecoin is pioneering a new era of digital preservation. Learn more about how decentralized storage is shaping the future of cultural preservation in the announcement. 

Endor Street (Horner Boulevard) in Sanford

We are excited to announce that new photographs from The Sanford Herald Photographic Print Collection at Lee County Libraries are now available on DigitalNC. In November 2023, The Sanford Herald (1930-present) donated thousands of images, spanning from the 1930s to the 2000s, to Lee County Libraries. This new back of material includes photographs from the 1930s to the 1970s that document Black community members, businesses, churches, and schools across Lee County. A selection of these photographs is featured below!

Patsy Womack, 100-Year Old Sanford Resident

n 2015, the blogging site Tumblr launched a GIF discovery feature called Tumblr TV as an experimental product. Now, with the U.S. TikTok ban leaving the fate of the short-form video app uncertain, Tumblr has decided it’s finally time to launch Tumblr TV, which has since evolved to support video, to all its users as one of its standard features. 

The company on Tuesday announced the product’s graduation from its experimental projects home known as Tumblr Labs, explaining how the tab would become available to everyone. New users will see the tab in a fairly prominent third position in the app. Meanwhile, existing users will be able to toggle Tumblr TV on or off in their Dashboard Tabs configuration settings, Tumblr said.

The decision to promote the video product from an experiment to a core feature nearly 10 years after its creation has a lot to do with the demand for TikTok alternatives in the wake of the U.S. law that banned the app and others with Chinese ownership in the country. 

Though enforcement of that ban is currently on hold after President Trump’s intervention, it’s still unclear whether TikTok will agree to a deal — despite itsmany suitors — to keep the app live in the U.S. after the 75-day deadline extension is up.

Like many apps, Tumblr saw a surge of users joining its service on the day of the TikTok ban on January 19, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch. As a result, the blogging service saw a roughly 35% increase in iOS app installs and a 70% increase in new users joining Communities, a feature that allows users to join various groups focused on specific interests.

In fact, some newcomers even established Tumblr Communities, like TikTok Repository, aimed at those who want a place to back up and share their TikTok videos. Another Community, TikTok Refugees, was active with both new and returning users, the company said.

As a competitor to TikTok, however, Tumblr TV falls short. Though the company made many improvements while the service was a Labs feature — including the addition of lightbox support, improved scrubbing, and video support — the final product doesn’t feel all that much like TikTok, where original creator content dominates.

Tumblr’s video feed does allow for vertical swipe-based navigation within its channels (like Art or Sports) when viewed on mobile, similar to TikTok. But the GIFs featured in this full-screen viewing mode are naturally grainy, while many of the videos featured aren’t formatted for vertical viewing because they were never recorded for a vertical video app in the first place. 

Still, the company hopes that a video feed could make TikTok users feel a little bit more at home if they decide to move to Tumblr. 

Of course, with TikTok back online in the U.S. for the time being, the demand for a backup app is likely waning.