Mystery in the Ice: Unveiling the Identities of Four Lost Franklin Expedition Sailors After Nearly Two Centuries
Scientists successfully identified three men whose remains were found near the sleds discovered in the mid-19th century: Able Seaman William Orren, Boy First Class David Young, and officers’ steward John Bridgens.
Orren first went to sea at age 15, though he was 38 when he joined the Franklin expedition. Young was just 17 when he boarded the Erebus to follow in the footsteps of his father, who was also a sailor.
Diana Trepkov/Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2026)A forensic reconstruction of the face of David Young.
Bridgens was trained to be a hairdresser like his stepfather, but he instead joined his first voyage as a musician in 1829, when he was still a child, and eventually volunteered for the Franklin expedition at age 26. “His seaman’s ticket indicates that he was illiterate,” researchers wrote in the study, “which is further demonstrated by his marking his name with a cross on his allotment records.”
These men join just a handful of other sailors from the Franklin expedition who have been identified over the years. In the 1980s, three mummified corpses — including that of John Torrington — were found on Beechey Island. They were likely among the first expedition members to die, as they were buried in marked graves.
Then, in 2021, researchers used DNA to identify Erebus engineer John Gregory. Three years later, they officially identified James Fitzjames, the man who became captain after Franklin’s death — and who was likely cannibalized.
As Dr. Warrior told the BBC, “Once we know who the remains belonged to we can reimagine them, vital and alive before the horrors of their tragic end in the most desperate of circumstances. These were real people, who lived, were loved, suffered and died far away from home, yet traces of their existence remain.”
After reading about the identification of four additional bodies from the Franklin expedition, look through 33 images of the earliest Arctic expeditions. Then, learn about Charles Francis Hall, the 19th-century explorer who died in Greenland under mysterious circumstances.
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