30-year mystery of bone fragments washing up on several NJ beaches finally solved by group of college kids

Various bones that washed up on New Jersey beaches starting 30 years ago were finally determined to belong to the captain of a 19th-century shipwreck, officials revealed Wednesday.The remains found on several south Jersey shorelines between 1995 and 2013 were connected to Henry Goodsell, the 29-year-old captain of the doomed schooner “Oriental,” according to the Ramapo College Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center The incredible breakthrough was made thanks to a group of Ramapo College students who worked the cold case for nearly two years by tapping into DNA testing and combing through records that were hundreds of years old.“The ability to bring answers to families — even generations later — shows how far science and dedication can take us,” New Jersey State Police Superintendent Patrick Callahan said in a statement.Five crew members, including Goodsell, were sailing from Connecticut to Philadelphia to deliver marble to a yet-to-be-opened college preparatory boarding school in 1844 when the ship likely sprang a leak and submerged less than a mile from the coast of Brigantine Shoal, killing everyone aboard. A skull – which was initially deemed a John Doe — first washed ashore in Longport in 1995 before more bones were discovered in Margate four years later – both towns in Atlantic County.More bones were unearthed in 2013 in Ocean City in a different county, but despite the growing evidence, the typical methods of investigation couldn’t lead to an identification.A decade later, state police tapped the Ramapo College IGG Center for help.A genetics sample was sent in November 2023 to Intermountain Forensics, which then uploaded the DNA to different ancestry databases a few months later, Ramapo College said.Ramapo undergrads and students part of the IGG Center certificate program then scoured through records, finding ancestry from the 1600s with genetic relatives who lived in a pair of Connecticut counties.Students also looked into shipwrecks an...