By Rosalind Russell – The Toronto Police Service Homicide and Missing Persons Unit is asking for assistance from the public in connection to a cold case dating back to 2002.
Detective Constable James Atchinson told The Moose on July 26th, 2002, the body of an unidentified man was found in the Don River/Queen Street East area of Toronto.
He says updated DNA testing has yielded new information with many matches for John Doe, but none high enough to identify him.
He adds their office is reasonably confident that his mother has mostly Manitoulin Island ancestry due to those matches.
Atchinson says on his father’s side, the matches that are not X matches seem to indicate that his paternal ancestors are from Mississauga First Nation near Blind River.
Atchinson says they have his DNA on two hobby sites, FTDNA and Gedmatch, and from there are now researching the genetic relatives on his match lists to find his family.
He stresses they are hoping that someone may remember him and that others who have done the hobby DNA profiles will allow them to compare theirs to John Doe.
Atchinson explained the genetic mapping.
We have a handful of what would be second cousin type matches in non-endogamous communities, but the intermarriage between families numerous times in the area leads us to believe that our higher so-called “second cousin” matches are actually doubled, tripled and more to make them cousins of our John Doe multiple times.
We are reasonably confident that his mother has mostly Manitoulin Island ancestry due to the matches to him on the X chromosome.
A match on the X chromosome means the match is related to the mother of a male.
He only has one X chromosome, and he got it from his mother.
The oldest couple we can trace to on his maternal line are Marie Roy born May 24, 1817, and her husband Henri Corbiere born about Apr 2, 1823, both born on Manitoulin, possibly in Wikwemikong, and who died in West Bay/ M’Chigeeng First Nation in 1918 and 1917 respectively.
We have nine of their descendants that are related to our John Doe including some X matches, indicating that they are the ancestors of his mother.
Paternally, most matches go back to one family, the descendants of Joseph Vincent born in Quebec in 1856 and his wife Angelique born about 1856 and who have many descendants on the Mississauga First Nation and nearby.
We have eight of their descendants that are genetic matches to our John Doe.
He is approximately one third European ethnicity and two thirds North American indigenous ancestry.
The most recent common ancestors he shares with his DNA matches that are also European look to be French Metis couples that moved to the area in the early 1800s.
We have spoken to many families and have ruled out some missing men already.
However, since he was born around the time of the 60s Scoop it is possible that he did not grow up in the area.
We have solved about 25 cases and in every case, we needed the cooperation of the families to recover their names.
Photo: Poster provided by The Toronto Police Service Homicide and Missing Persons Unit, Cold Case Office and used with permission.
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