Identified! PA - Philadelphia - 'Boy in the Box' - 4UMPA - Feb'57 #3 - Joseph Augustus Zarelli

[blackbeary]

Thanks for posting this, I'm a few minutes in and it's very interesting. Misti says that the birth certificate verified the father they had mapped out, whose closest DNA relative they could find was in Italy.

WoW

 

[MarziPanda]

Yes, you can. And then, if possible you can add in autosomal DNA. Now it's true that only the mother's side will be known - but of those women's live histories are known, most of the story will be there.

It's very likely there's also autosomal DNA available (a little anyway), but that can be highly inconclusive as many of us share very similar alleles at particular spots in the genome. Minor variation in some unusual locii (such as the gene for hemoglobin) can be very revelatory.

No one wants to go back a thousand years in any of this analysis - four generations is usually enough to give a picture. Keep in mind that even with a better sample, it's often not possible to narrow down to one suspect using any form of genetic analysis.

(I'm new to this case and do not know yet how the genealogical analysis would be applied - but it would certainly give a picture of moms, siblings, aunts and uncles on mom's side, grandmothers and great-aunts on mom's side, etc). Quite a family tree - and a very well known system that helps locate ethnicity as well.

The subsequent interview with Misti, posted on page 26, implies that they used autosomal DNA (because she said they found distant paternal cousins living in Italy.) That they were able to confirm Joseph's paternity using DNA also implies they had autosomal.

I believe there was another case where, when genetic genealogy was in its infancy, they tried to use mitochondrial DNA for this purpose (the woman found in Delaware in 1967, in a laundry bag). It wasn't successful. The 'relatives' they found were from New Jersey and had no clue who she was, because a mitochondrial DNA match just means they're related somewhere along the maternal line. That could be sharing a grandmother or it could be sharing a 10x great grandmother, and you don't have any way of finding out which. With this information it's very, very difficult to use the triangulation methods that genetic genealogy uses. According to some websites she may possibly have been identified (using an autosomal match with a half brother who was looking for her) as an immigrant with no relatives in the US at all. It's one thing to use a mitochondrial DNA test to confirm and explore an already existing family tree, like genealogists do, it's another to try to use it to identify unknown family.

 

[Friday Fan]

The subsequent interview with Misti, posted on page 26, implies that they used autosomal DNA (because she said they found distant paternal cousins living in Italy.) That they were able to confirm Joseph's paternity using DNA also implies they had autosomal.

I believe there was another case where, when genetic genealogy was in its infancy, they tried to use mitochondrial DNA for this purpose (the woman found in Delaware in 1967, in a laundry bag). It wasn't successful. The 'relatives' they found were from New Jersey and had no clue who she was, because a mitochondrial DNA match just means they're related somewhere along the maternal line. That could be sharing a grandmother or it could be sharing a 10x great grandmother, and you don't have any way of finding out which. With this information it's very, very difficult to use the triangulation methods that genetic genealogy uses. According to some websites she may possibly have been identified (using an autosomal match with a half brother who was looking for her) as an immigrant with no relatives in the US at all. It's one thing to use a mitochondrial DNA test to confirm and explore an already existing family tree, like genealogists do, it's another to try to use it to identify unknown family.

Also a name on a birth certificate isn't good enough. Sure investigators, "knew" who it is, but they needed to confirm that Joseph Zeralli was actually the son of a father on the birth certificate. The family needs to know without a doubt that JAZ was their relative and how he is related to them.

 

[blackbeary]

Also a name on a birth certificate isn't good enough. Sure investigators, "knew" who it is, but they needed to confirm that Joseph Zeralli was actually the son of a father on the birth certificate. The family needs to know without a doubt that JAZ was their relative and how he is related to them.

It sounds like the maternal family members have accepted the DNA Connection, maybe not the Paternal family? I had difficulty hearing the reporter's questions, I wish they passed a mic around.

 

[IDK]

It sounds like the maternal family members have accepted the DNA Connection, maybe not the Paternal family? I had difficulty hearing the reporter's questions, I wish they passed a mic around.

Someone posted the transcript earlier— it was very helpful in deciphering the reporters’ questions

 

[Elley Mae]

The genealogical testing results led police to the identity of Joseph’s maternal relatives, including his birth mother, and a court order was issued for the birth, death and adoption records of her children between 1944 and 1956. Three birth certificates came back.

Two of them were for children of the birth mother whom police already knew about from the genealogical testing — one of whom had provided DNA and been matched as a relative of the boy in the investigation, officials said.
The third was for a boy named Joseph, born Jan. 13, 1953. Based on the birth father listed on the certificate, detectives found Joseph’s paternal relatives and matched DNA to his birth father’s side of the family as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/08/boy-in-the-box-name/

 

[Red Pill]

From CBS Philadelphia:

"The Boy in The Box" Identified: The mystery of Joseph Augustus Zarelli Watch our 30-minute special on how Philadelphia police discovered "America's Unknown Child" 65 years later.

 

[loveplace]

Just some mainstream genealogy research info that may not be obvious to people who don't "do" genealogy.... family trees on ancestry and family search can day anything at all the owner wants them to say. All actual and valid research they needs to be backed up by documents from public records that verify the people listed in the tree and their relationships. So if ancestry.com has an individual tree listing Joseph's parents, and I'm sure there are more than one now that the case has broken, that isn't proof unless there are historical public records OR DNA matches to verify those relationships. I hope that helps.

 

[AnnesCuthberts]

Not sure if this was posted, but Gray Hughes had Misty Gillis on tonight. She is with Identifinders and worked on this case. I haven't listened yet, but if you want to check it out, it's at the very beginning of the stream

Thank you for posting this! Very enlightening so far and I've only watched the first 8 minutes! Just for reference, some quickly typed answers (some I've shortened down to be more concise/relevant to discussions here) from Misty from that time point. Highly recommend people watch this video to get some more answers, but the first few seem to answer some things for me already!

On the case:
"So with this case in particular the highest match we had was a second or third cousin and it was on the paternal side of the family and it went back to Italy. So that was a little difficult with mapping out/finding the common connections between matches because although there are Italian records online, they're not great for certain areas of Italy. So that was difficult. The maternal side of the family was really easy, we were able to get a lock on that quickly and and luckily because we got a lock on that we were able to get the birth certificate, which once we got the name of the father we were able to validate those paternal matches that we had."

On the genealogy itself:
"It was pretty straightforward. The maternal side of the family was really straight forward. So that took me, maybe a month or two? Just to map out those connections and figure out what I was looking at. The paternal side we were able to figure out once we got the birth certificate in."

On the DNA:
"The DNA was atrocious. So we got the case in 2019 and it was from a previous genealogist who had a sequencing sample done and it was "mardis gras" - that's what we call it - so you get your admixture on GedMatch, you can work out what your ancestral origins are, and it's like a pie chart. For the typical person it might be 2 or 3 different ethnic groups. You might be West Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Baltic for a Caucasian person. This one had like 15 different ancestral makeups in the pie, and for us that's a flag for bad data because there's no way that someone comes from all these ethnic origins. You might come from two or three different groups but you're not going to be Sub-Saharan, Asian, Italian, North Atlantic all on the same admixture. So the data was bad and I had tried working off of that originally to see if I could pull in some good matches but the matches were so distant and all over the place - we had Brazillian matches, Hungarian matches, Irish matches, African American matches, so we scrapped it. Dr Fitzpatrick, she had been in talks with a couple of labs that do Ancient DNA analysis and she had gotten some of the remains sent to those labs for a better extract so we could get a more precise sequencing done. That's what took so long in this case. We got in 2019 but it took until 2021 to get the actual good sample."

 

[iamshadow21]

"Dr Fitzpatrick, she had been in talks with a couple of labs that do Ancient DNA analysis and she had gotten some of the remains sent to those labs for a better extract so we could get a more precise sequencing done. That's what took so long in this case. We got in 2019 but it took until 2021 to get the actual good sample."

RSBM

Wow, you KNOW it's bad when they have to call in the aDNA folks for a Doe who's only been deceased for 65 years.

Great collaboration, though. It got the result everyone had been hoping for for so long.

 

[Ms Suzanne]

Someone posted the transcript earlier— it was very helpful in deciphering the reporters’ questions

May I please ask you where I can find this?

 

[anynameyouwish]

It occurs to me that the mother may actually have predeceased Joseph.

When they announced that both parents were dead, I kind of assumed that his mother lived to be an old lady. But there's no reason to think that. The fact that they pulled birth records for those years (1944-1956) is a little odd. I know they were looking for Joseph in particular, but the range didn't need to be that wide for him alone. There is no way he was born in 1944. They surely wanted to find any other siblings. So why stop in 1956? Unless she was already like 45 by then, which I really doubt, she could easily have had more children after that. Unless she couldn't...because she was no longer alive. It's possible that something happened to her, and then Joseph went to live with the person who abused him.

 

[IDK]

May I please ask you where I can find this?

Checking now— might take little bit. Will repost when I find it

 

[Ms Suzanne]

When (or did)the reporter asked him if Joseph was living at home what did he say?

 

[jamielynnew]

Just some mainstream genealogy research info that may not be obvious to people who don't "do" genealogy.... family trees on ancestry and family search can day anything at all the owner wants them to say. All actual and valid research they needs to be backed up by documents from public records that verify the people listed in the tree and their relationships. So if ancestry.com has an individual tree listing Joseph's parents, and I'm sure there are more than one now that the case has broken, that isn't proof unless there are historical public records OR DNA matches to verify those relationships. I hope that helps.

Thank you for posting this. I'm not on Websleuths often; what brought me here this time around was this specific case and its use of DNA to discover Joseph's identity. My daughter is a Philadelphia-area prosecutor (no longer with the Philly DA's office, not involved with this case) who texted me while the press conference was ongoing because of my avid interest in genetic genealogy.

As a researcher, I'm finding the amount of "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true" on here disheartening. Personally I go for as much redundancy as possible when I'm out to prove a familial connection, and I view ALL family trees on Ancestry with a healthy dose of skepticism. Ditto with FindAGrave and any other user-submitted resources.

I'd take what you said further: "...that isn't proof unless there are historical public records _AND_ DNA matches to verify those relationships." That's how I prefer it ;-)

 

[Vern]

May I please ask you where I can find this?

I believe this is it in this post:

Identified! - PA - Philadelphia - 'Boy in the Box' - 4UMPA - Feb'57 #3 - Joseph Augustus Zarelli

No, they didn't dismiss her just because she was "mentally ill" If there was actual evidence to corroborate her claims, it wouldn't matter if she was mentally ill or not She changed her story and made up details that didn't match She didn't "change her story" or "[make] up details that...

www.websleuths.com

And more in this post too:

Identified! - PA - Philadelphia - 'Boy in the Box' - 4UMPA - Feb'57 #3 - Joseph Augustus Zarelli

No, they didn't dismiss her just because she was "mentally ill" If there was actual evidence to corroborate her claims, it wouldn't matter if she was mentally ill or not She changed her story and made up details that didn't match She didn't "change her story" or "[make] up details that...

www.websleuths.com

 

[Friday Fan]

Thank you for posting this! Very enlightening so far and I've only watched the first 8 minutes! Just for reference, some quickly typed answers (some I've shortened down to be more concise/relevant to discussions here) from Misty from that time point. Highly recommend people watch this video to get some more answers, but the first few seem to answer some things for me already!

On the case:
"So with this case in particular the highest match we had was a second or third cousin and it was on the paternal side of the family and it went back to Italy. So that was a little difficult with mapping out/finding the common connections between matches because although there are Italian records online, they're not great for certain areas of Italy. So that was difficult. The maternal side of the family was really easy, we were able to get a lock on that quickly and and luckily because we got a lock on that we were able to get the birth certificate, which once we got the name of the father we were able to validate those paternal matches that we had."

On the genealogy itself:
"It was pretty straightforward. The maternal side of the family was really straight forward. So that took me, maybe a month or two? Just to map out those connections and figure out what I was looking at. The paternal side we were able to figure out once we got the birth certificate in."

On the DNA:
"The DNA was atrocious. So we got the case in 2019 and it was from a previous genealogist who had a sequencing sample done and it was "mardis gras" - that's what we call it - so you get your admixture on GedMatch, you can work out what your ancestral origins are, and it's like a pie chart. For the typical person it might be 2 or 3 different ethnic groups. You might be West Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Baltic for a Caucasian person. This one had like 15 different ancestral makeups in the pie, and for us that's a flag for bad data because there's no way that someone comes from all these ethnic origins. You might come from two or three different groups but you're not going to be Sub-Saharan, Asian, Italian, North Atlantic all on the same admixture. So the data was bad and I had tried working off of that originally to see if I could pull in some good matches but the matches were so distant and all over the place - we had Brazillian matches, Hungarian matches, Irish matches, African American matches, so we scrapped it. Dr Fitzpatrick, she had been in talks with a couple of labs that do Ancient DNA analysis and she had gotten some of the remains sent to those labs for a better extract so we could get a more precise sequencing done. That's what took so long in this case. We got in 2019 but it took until 2021 to get the actual good sample."

Thank you for the transcript!!!
I found what they did with the poor quality DNA most interesting.

I do play around with ancient DNA on Gedmatch and the admixtures of few of the specimens make you go,hmmm
I was told it was due to degradation of DNA.

Poor Otzi the Iceman, his DNA is either really messed up or his file is messed up. ( His DNA is on Gedmatch for all to compare with)

 

[amybman1]

The Zarelli family was almost certainly Roman Catholic, no? I would think if Zarelli is the surname of either mother or father, Joseph would have been baptized shortly after birth. I wonder if the neighborhood church has any records from around that time. Surely it's been looked into by now?

I had the same thought-- my Italian great grandparents were not really practicing Catholics at the time, but they still had my grandfather baptized. I just called the closest Catholic church to their location at the time and had them look in the book for the surrounding year and it was there. (Typically, the baptism is done very soon after the birth, but for my grandfather they lived in a rural location and didn't own a vehicle so they waited for better, walkable weather thus the need to search the surrounding year.)

 

[loveplace]

Thank you for posting this. I'm not on Websleuths often; what brought me here this time around was this specific case and its use of DNA to discover Joseph's identity. My daughter is a Philadelphia-area prosecutor (no longer with the Philly DA's office, not involved with this case) who texted me while the press conference was ongoing because of my avid interest in genetic genealogy.

As a researcher, I'm finding the amount of "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true" on here disheartening. Personally I go for as much redundancy as possible when I'm out to prove a familial connection, and I view ALL family trees on Ancestry with a healthy dose of skepticism. Ditto with FindAGrave and any other user-submitted resources.

I'd take what you said further: "...that isn't proof unless there are historical public records _AND_ DNA matches to verify those relationships." That's how I prefer it ;-)

Your last sentence is spot on and in lieu of DNA proof, public records research with multiple sources meeting the level of genealogical proof(there is an industry standard there) would be the second best. In this case they verified with DNA which is the gold standard, but no one in the general public has access to the samples to verify those matches for us and provide more info. We can formulate a very educated guess based on dimensions and social circumstances here but no one but the holder of the DNA matches can know for sure unless more info is released by LE or one of the families involved directly.

 

[LeBlack]

RSBM

After reading up on the adoption practices of the time, I think there are two main takeaways: 1) Joseph's mother likely had no idea who her child was adopted out to, and/or 2) if his mother was from Philadelphia, it is more likely that Joseph was adopted by a blood relative since relatively few children were adopted by unrelated couples living in the same community as the mother.

Do you have a theory how a child would be adopted out to a family member without the mother knowing WHO has her child? Would the adoptive family just be a bit more distant relatives/pretend the child was theirs?