A Revolutionary War soldier's DNA links him to living relatives

Plaques to help identify 14 unknown soldiers who were found at the site of the Battle of Camden and are being reburied are seen on Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Columbia, South Carolina. DNA analysis has recently identified one of them. Jeffrey Collins/AP hide caption toggle caption Jeffrey Collins/AP After enlisting as a teenager in the 7th Maryland regiment of the Continental Army in January 1777, Pvt. John Pumphrey marched hundreds of miles through early American history. Records show he took part in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown in Pennsylvania and the battle of Monmouth in New Jersey. He spent two brutal winters encamped at Valley Forge and Morristown before heading into the deep South to face the British once again. The Battle of Camden, in August 1780, would be his last. Pumphrey was felled there by a British musket ball, his body left to lie in a shallow grave in South Carolina. Then, in 2022, archaeologists from the University of South Carolina uncovered his skeletal remains and submitted them for DNA analysis in hopes of discovering his identity. When the results came back from a genome sequencing laboratory, they were handed off to FHD Forensics, a company that matches DNA with historical genealogy records to identify unknown human remains. Among the many matches was 71-year-old Nancy White. When she was contacted about her distant relation, the news came as a shock, she says. …