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submitted 9 months ago by FirstCircle@lemmy.ml to c/news@lemmy.world

The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

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[-] RamenDame@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

How do they determine age with a DNA test? Wouldn’t say look at the remains from the death baby’s? I have questions.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

dna gives you parent gives you when they were there? assuming they kept records of who lived there.

[-] RamenDame@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

But that would mean they collected maternal samples as well. And they didn’t say that. In the 60s that is highly unlikely.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago
[-] RamenDame@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

See my reply to a different comment.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

DNA -> find mother -> ask when birth or abortion occurred. Otherwise, examination and guesswork. If you look at a skull, you can approximately tell the age at death.

[-] RamenDame@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I don’t know how the laws are in different countries but just analysing and matching them against anyone sounds highly illegal to me. Next, people need to first be sequenced. Unless they asked them, how do they have their data if they are highly private.

Maybe my question was misleading: for me it sounded like they only analysed the infant DNA and did not perform matches etc. if they used skull size etc to identify the victims it wasn’t a DNA analysis to identify the victim.

[-] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

Probably radiocarbon dating?

this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
584 points (99.3% liked)

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