FHACT July Monthly Meeting

Family History ACT Monthly Meeting: Tuesday 1 July 7pm.  (In person at the FHACT Education Room, Cook Community Hub, Templeton Street, Cook, or online via Zoom). 

Join members of Family History ACT for our monthly meeting: DNA identification of the HMAS Sydney unknown sailor - an 80-year mystery solved.  

Guest speaker:  Associate Professor Jeremy Austin

All welcome. Members and guests interested in attending should register for this event here.

DNA identification of the HMAS Sydney unknown sailor - an 80-year mystery solved

Following a battle with the German raider HSK Kormoran in November 1941, the Australian warship HMAS Sydney (II) was sunk, claiming the lives of all 645 crew on board. Only one sailor was recovered deceased in a life raft three months later and buried in an unmarked grave on Christmas Island in February 1942.

In October 2006, an archaeological team recovered the 'Unknown Sailor's' remains to forensically examine and identify them. This quest finally came to an end on the 80th anniversary of the sinking of HMAS Sydney.

Assoc. Prof. Jeremy Austin will discuss his 14-year search and use of ancient DNA technologies, including the multidisciplinary and multiagency approach to identify the sailor in Australia's biggest maritime mystery, and then outline some of the new approaches for using genetic genealogy in forensic and historical research.

Jeremy is an evolutionary biologist working in the fields of ancient DNA, molecular ecology, conservation genetics and forensic biology. He received his PhD from the University of Tasmania in 1995 and has held postdoctoral research positions at the Natural History Museum (London), University of Queensland (Brisbane), Museum Victoria (Melbourne) and the University of Adelaide. In 2011 he was awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and is now a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences, and Deputy Director of ACAD, at the University of Adelaide.