CT CT - Hartford, Hartford Circus Fire Victims, (UP59498, UP59500, UP59502, UP59503, UP59504), July 1944

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branmuffin said:
What a terrible tragic event. I was reviewing the photos attached to the website a poster upthread provided.

The image of the deceased child identified as Eleanor Cook doesn't look much like the actual likeness of Eleanor except some some superficial resemblance. To me the image of the deceased child looks much younger than Eleanor. At the age of 8 Eleanor would already have some permanent teeth, probably her top front teeth and the lower bottom four. The image of the deceased child shows she still has all her baby teeth, at least the top teeth that are visible.

Also the deceased girl's ears appear much smaller than Eleanor's. Eleanor's ears are quite large and fleshy compared to the UID.

The unknown little girl is wearing a flowered dress and Eleanor was wearing a red and blue playsuit that suggests shorts and top attached.

It does appear that someone misidentified the little girl or some family, not willing or able to identify burned remains chose instead to identify based on written characteristics.

Who could blame them? Tragedies involving children are the worst, unimaginable and overwhelming for everyone. Without the science and technology available to us today it's understandable mistakes were made. As a matter of fact there is a case of young boy who was supposedly kidnapped who ended being given back to the parents. Yet years later, through DNA it was found the child was not related to the 'parents' he was returned to.

Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar - Wikipedia
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I don't want to horrify you but I have a pic of my 8 year old cousin alive and her autopsy picture , it exactly resembles the side by sides above to the tee! and I keep looking at the picture noticing those same kind of differences , so I'm thinking it really is her to me it does look like Eleanor! JMO
 
sloane7777 said:
I don't want to horrify you but I have a pic of my 8 year old cousin alive and her autopsy picture , it exactly resembles the side by sides above to the tee! and I keep looking at the picture noticing those same kind of differences , so I'm thinking it really is her to me it does look like Eleanor! JMO
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Ears are one of the characteristics that don't change much from birth. Contrary to popular belief our ears don't grow larger as we age, they are just susceptible to gravity. If I used calipers to measure the length of Eleanor's ears in comparison to the length of her head from crown to chin her ears are much larger than the little girl in the autopsy photo.
 

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I sometimes post photos on these threads (not the one of the little girl mentioned above) and find that often the search engine pulls up a lot of unrelated or misidentified photos.

While some of the scenarios mentioned regarding misidentifying the remains could certainly be possible, I would tend to think that it is much more likely that the photo itself was mislabeled at a later date by a reporter, writer, or blogger.

That said, there were some misidentifications, and some victims who could not be identified following this tragedy and some who are considered "missing" to this day.
 
Richard said:
I sometimes post photos on these threads (not the one of the little girl mentioned above) and find that often the search engine pulls up a lot of unrelated or misidentified photos.

While some of the scenarios mentioned regarding misidentifying the remains could certainly be possible, I would tend to think that it is much more likely that the photo itself was mislabeled at a later date by a reporter, writer, or blogger.

That said, there were some misidentifications, and some victims who could not be identified following this tragedy and some who are considered "missing" to this day.
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I don't believe that the two photos identified as Little Miss 1565 and the numerous pictures of Eleanor Cook have been misidentified.
 
From DDP's page:

"Status: Indefinite Hold

The DDP and their labs applied their expertise to process highly degraded DNA on bone material that was burned and buried for over 75 years. In January 2020 the bones of both victims were sent to Astrea Forensics, a company located in Santa Cruz, CA that specializes in ancient DNA analysis.

After attempting multiple extractions on each victim, insufficient DNA was obtained to proceed to sequencing. Given the condition of the remaining samples we felt it better to preserve them until further advances in extraction techniques become available. Therefore, these two cases are on indefinite hold and the samples have been returned to the custody of the Medical Examiner. We thank our many donors for their help in defraying the costs of the extractions.

DDP never gives up on a case. Several cases have gone back and forth through multiple labs as we pursue getting sufficient DNA, which can take many months, even a year or more. But whenever we eventually succeed in obtaining DNA, with the help of advanced bioinformatics and a great team of genealogists, we often make an identification in these seemingly hopeless cases. We hold that hope for all our Does, including these two."

Hartford Circus Fire Victims - DNA Doe Project Cases
 
dnadoeproject.org

Hartford Circus Fire Victims - DNA Doe Project

Description The Hartford Circus Fire on July 6, 1944 was the worst disaster in the history of the city. As the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey big top caught fire and collapsed, it was inevitable that families and friends would become separated as the nearly 8,000 spectators fled for...
dnadoeproject.org dnadoeproject.org
 
John/Jane Doe said:
dnadoeproject.org

Hartford Circus Fire Victims - DNA Doe Project

Description The Hartford Circus Fire on July 6, 1944 was the worst disaster in the history of the city. As the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey big top caught fire and collapsed, it was inevitable that families and friends would become separated as the nearly 8,000 spectators fled for...
dnadoeproject.org dnadoeproject.org
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Well, that's unfortunate.
 
branmuffin said:
Well, that's unfortunate.
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For context (from the link):
[RSBM] "In January 2020 the bones of both victims were sent to Astrea Forensics, a company located in Santa Cruz, CA that specializes in ancient DNA analysis.

After attempting multiple extractions on each victim, insufficient DNA was obtained to proceed to sequencing. Given the condition of the remaining samples we felt it better to preserve them until further advances in extraction techniques become available. Therefore, these two cases are on indefinite hold and the samples have been returned to the custody of the Medical Examiner. We thank our many donors for their help in defraying the costs of the extractions.

DDP never gives up on a case. Several cases have gone back and forth through multiple labs as we pursue getting sufficient DNA, which can take many months, even a year or more. But whenever we eventually succeed in obtaining DNA, with the help of advanced bioinformatics and a great team of genealogists, we often make an identification in these seemingly hopeless cases."
 
For the record, I don't think Little Miss 1565 is Eleanor Cook. I think Eleanor's remains were mistakenly identified as belonging to another victim.
 
HmmMysterious said:
I'm kinda surprised DDP is having trouble with Little Miss 1565 given the fact that she was well preserved after the fire
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I think I might be misunderstanding - from my interpretation of the article it sounded like it was two females (one black woman, one white woman) who were undergoing testing by DDP. I may be mistaken, but it said that the white female remains were thought to possibly belong to Grace Dorothy Fifield, who was a missing adult spectator from the Hartford fire. So I think they are adult remains. Unless they are testing more remains from the fire and possibly Little Miss 1565's? I am a bit unclear.

PeregrineFalcon said:
You kind of answered my question. If that's not Eleanor Cook, then where is Eleanor?
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IMO, I think with the sheer amount of remains from the fire that coroners, LE, families, etc. were dealing with at the time, that there were likely some that got misidentified in the chaos. I kind of go back and forth on Little Miss 1565, because part of me thinks it's possible that she was misidentified as another little girls' remains, but then that doesn't seem very plausible since Little Miss 1565's face was in recognizable condition, just a burn on the cheek, and seemingly widely circulated at the time. I think the identification of the remains was just jumbled and difficult because of how many people they were dealing with, not because it was anybody's fault but just because of the other factors.
I see why people think Little Miss 1565 is Eleanor but I just don't think it's possible IMO because of all the discrepancies, and I don't think they look alike facially either.
 
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