The bones of a Canadian soldier found on a battlefield in France from the First World War are not the remains of a long-lost great uncle of Marlie Kelsey, from Chemainus.
But Kelsey said the hope is strong that someday, the remains of her great uncle Private Duncan McLaren will be found now that his DNA is on file.
Kelsey had been contacted by the federal Casualty Identification Program, an arm of the Canadian Department of National Defence which works to identify newly found skeletal remains of Canadian service members from major wars around the world, last year and was told that the bones of a Canadian soldier had been uncovered in a mass grave near where the Battle of Hill 70, close to the City of Lens, took place in August, 1917.
She said at the time that a forensic analysis of the bones narrowed down the identification of the remains to five soldiers, with one of them being Kelsey’s great uncle, Duncan McLaren, from Montreal, who was known to have been among 25 Canadian soldiers who were killed in action on the first day of the battle on Aug. 15, 1917, and were buried in a mass grave which was marked with a memorial at the time, but had disappeared long ago.
McLaren, who was just 21 when he died, was a member of the 13th Battalion of the Royal Highlanders of Canada which was sent to France to fight with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War.
His battalion was one of several involved in an attack on Hill 70 as part of the Canadian Corps that followed the Corps' involvement in the capture of Vimy Ridge, which took place during the Battle of Arras in April, 1917.
McLaren has a number of paternal great nephews in eastern Canada and the U.S., and one in Georgia, who is also coincidentally called Duncan McLaren, did a cheek swab and sent it to the Casualty Identification Program for comparison.
But Kelsey recently received a letter from Sarah Lockyer, a casualty identification coordinator at the Casualty Identification Program, stating that the DNA testing concluded that the remains are not of her great uncle.
“We understand that the news may be disappointing to you as it is to the families of all those who are still missing,” Lockyer said. “Nevertheless, be assured that the Canadian Armed Forces is committed to continuing our investigation in identifying these discovered remains. The DNA profile (that Kelsey’s family provided) will remain in the case file for comparison against future discoveries in the area of the Battle of Hill 70.”
