We human beings are born to be unique. Although twins of similar features and sexes are hard to be differentiated, there is still one big difference if you look enough underneath all the layers of organs. The answer lies in the genetic markers in our DNA.
In this case, we can even reconstruct genetic profile of someone distant in your family tree or missing family member as gene inheritance happens in family like from grandparents to parents and so forth.
This identification method that is now being used for situations that, due to decomposition and the loss of medical records, have exhausted all other available identification methods.
For example, the World Trade Center 2001 destruction, Hurricane Katrina 2005 and South East Asia tsunami chaos 2004 which resulted in thousands of death which may need few days or weeks to retrieve the bodies and to be brought back to the morgue as weather, lack of humanitarian volunteers, badly affected location and also lack of technology could improve situation.
Forensic and postmortem protocols could check on features like dental, fingerprint, sex, hair color and others. In addition, with further implementation like DNA matching, it is necessary for identification of children who were lacking little antemortem dental or fingerprint data.
With standardized procedures, it would be likely for months to correctly match the corpse using genetic markers. In addition, roughly only 50 to 60% of the 3025 persons who died in 9-11 chaos were managed to be identify in 18 months.
Certain DNA markers that are shared among a deceased individual’s DNA profile and several survivors’ reference sample profiles indicate that a relative has been found and can now be identified. Of course the high cost of DNA testing and lack of morgue with the expertise in those destructive places may lead to slow identification.
In 2006, the DNA Shoah Project was set to achieve its goal to give the departed Holocausts victims the last respect they deserved and to create a DNA database that can serve as both a genetic family tree and a memorial to those who perished.
The hope was to match these remains with DNA samples gathered from Holocaust survivors and from descendants of the departed.
The project’s second aim: to unite those orphaned by the Holocaust with a close relative who survived. With a large database of living survivors, internal matches among them could also turn up.
DNA typing has often been portrayed in the media and the courtroom as a controversial technology but in a way, it certainly acts as a helping tool in identification tool in survivors or dead bodies. People say dead bodies don’t talk, but if you study deep to their bones, they tell stories untold.
Nevertheless, the basic premise of the argument is valid and has been incorporated into recommendations about how forensic DNA testing be conducted and interpreted.