Overview
- Investigators announced Wednesday that a second previously unidentified World Trade Center victim was identified through investigative genetic genealogy and the victim's family requested that her name remain private.
- The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner says the new identification raises the confirmed total to 1,655 identified victims and leaves 1,098 still unidentified.
- OCME has prepared 47 candidate genetic samples for genealogical review, and 11 of those samples have undergone IGG testing, producing the two identifications so far.
- The NYPD maintains a specialized genetic genealogy squad that reconstructs family trees from public ancestry databases and historical records to link degraded DNA to living relatives.
- Officials say advances such as bone‑scraping techniques and a databank of more than 100,000 DNA profiles could enable further identifications and give more families the chance for closure.