Country's Oldest "John Does" the Focus of New Institute

Historic Camden and FHD Forensics partner to form Rev War Forensic Institute, roll out early findings

CAMDEN, S.C., Sept. 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Historic Camden Foundation and FHD Forensics today announced a groundbreaking partnership aimed at identifying America's first unknown Revolutionary War combatants. The Rev War Forensic Institute of the Historic Camden Foundation was inspired by the forensic genealogical investigation of the Camden Fourteen, men who were killed in action at the Battle of Camden in 1780. 

"The 2022/2023 efforts to recover and re-inter these individuals was just the beginning of honoring their sacrifices for a young nation," commented Southwick "Cary" Briggs, executive director, Historic Camden Foundation. "The ultimate honor is the ability to thank the unknowns by name and fill in the missing pieces of a modern-day family tree, which is what the institute will work to do."

FHD Forensics president Allison Peacock serves as the institute's executive director. "Nowhere in the world has a group come together to research, document, and name America's oldest fallen," noted Peacock. "The institute launched with the Camden Fourteen. We are not only announcing our formal establishment as an organization, but also we're also sharing what we've learned to date about two of the fourteen Revolutionary War combatants from the Battle of Camden. It's a mystery 244 years in the making."

Santa Cruz, California-based ancient DNA experts, Astrea Forensics performed DNA extractions from bone fragments and completed whole-genome sequencing to create the two profiles. "Two hundred year old remains are young when compared to samples we often work with," said Astrea's lab director, Cristina Verdugo, Ph.D. "However, these are the oldest samples Astrea Forensics has produced genealogy profiles for and they are much older than most forensics cases."

Once profiles were loaded into public databases, FHD Forensics began the process of searching for similarities to living individuals and creating a family tree that spans more than two centuries. "Our team is piecing together seven to nine generation family trees for each match, tracing generations containing between 64 and 256 ancestors each," noted Peacock. "We believe that the genetic distance between these men and their living descendants has never been attempted before in a John Doe investigation."

Preliminary profiles on the first two Camden subjects were released this summer and research continues.

Camden Subject 9B is a fourteen- to eighteen-year-old boy from Annapolis, Maryland. His closest relatives have the surnames Beall, Browne, Cheney, Davidge, Griffith, Pumphrey, Ridgley, Stewart, Wade, Warfield, Welsh, and Westall - all prominent Anne Arundel County, Maryland founding families. Camden Subject 11A is believed to be of early Jamestown Colony descent, with one ancestor from an early 18th century Ulster Scot or Irish immigrant family. Ancestral surnames in common with his genetic matches are Alexander, Beam, Birchfield, Boone, Bray, Cannady/Kennedy, Coleman, Embry, Hitchcock, Kash, McComb, Nickell, Owen, Poage, Scott, Soward/Seward, Taulbee/Tolbey, Waters, and Wilson Research for this subject has already revealed an inaccurate report that one Virginia artilleryman did not die at Camden as reported by multiple sources.

"These combatants protected one thing, and that was the thought of liberty," noted Briggs. "We look forward to sharing the unique DNA stories of the Camden combatants and their families in a dedicated space on the Historic Camden campus."

To learn more about the institute's findings, visit https://revwarforensicinstitute.org/.

Media contact:
Jennifer Howard
843.709.4192
[email protected]

SOURCE Rev War Forensic Institute