A review of historical documents concerning the 1859 discovery of the skeleton of a member of the 1845 Franklin expedition on southern King William Island revealed a significant but previously unrecognized geographical error about the site’s reported and mapped location. Archeological investigations conducted in 2019 established the site’s correct location and the fact that it had unwittingly been rediscovered in 1973. Misconceptions concerning the site’s location and key aspects of its interpretation highlight the importance of careful evaluation of historical and archeological data regarding the 1845 Franklin expedition.

The 1845 British polar expedition in search of a northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic under the command of Sir John Franklin resulted in the greatest loss of life event in the history of polar exploration. The names of the 129 officers and crew who sailed and died on the catastrophic voyage are known, but the identification of their skeletons found scattered along the route of their attempted escape is problematic. Here, we report DNA analyses from skeletal remains from King William Island, where the majority of the expedition fatalities occurred, and from a paternal descendant of a member of the expedition. A match was found between an archaeological sample and a presumed descendant sample using Y-chromosome haplotyping. We conclude that DNA and genealogical evidence confirm the identity of the remains as those of Warrant Officer John Gregory, Engineer, HMS Erebus. This is the first member of the 1845 Franklin expedition whose identity has been confirmed through DNA and genealogical analyses.