© Carol Goodwin
A photograph of the baby Sidney Leslie Goodwin, who is now believed to be the Titanic's unknown child.
Five days after the passenger ship the
Titanic sank, the crew of the rescue ship
Mackay-Bennett pulled the body of a fair-haired, roughly 2-year-old boy out of the Atlantic Ocean on April 21, 1912. Along with many other victims, his body went to a cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the crew of the
Mackay-Bennett had a headstone dedicated to the "unknown child" placed over his grave.
When it sank, the
Titanic took the lives of 1,497 of the 2,209 people aboard with it. Some bodies were recovered, but names remained elusive, while others are still missing. But researchers believe that they have finally resolved the identity of the unknown child -- concluding that he was 19-month-old Sidney Leslie Goodwin from England.
Though the unknown child was incorrectly identified twice before, researchers believe they have now conclusively determined the child was Goodwin. After his recovery, he was initially believed to be a 2-year-old Swedish boy, Gösta Leonard Pålsson, who was seen being washed overboard as the ship sank. This boy's mother, Alma Pålsson, was recovered with the tickets for all four of her children in her pocket, and buried in a grave behind the unknown child.
The effort to verify the child's identity using genetics began a little over a decade ago, when Ryan Parr, an adjunct professor at Lakehead University in Ontario who has worked with DNA extracted from
ancient human remains, watched some videos about the
Titanic.
"I thought 'Wow, I wonder if anyone is interested or still cares about the unidentified victims of the
Titanic,'" Parr said.
