Using autosomal and X-chromosomal SNPs to identify a victim of the 1956 Marcinelle mining disaster

The 1956 mining disaster in Marcinelle, Belgium, claimed 262 lives, among them 14 victims who could not be identified at the time. Their remains were exhumed in 2021 for identification, including DNA testing. We report here on the successful genetic identification of one of these victims, achieved by matching against three distant relatives using the FORCE SNP panel. In addition to likelihood ratio (LR) calculations, we implemented a novel identity-by-descent (IBD) segment detector suitable for low-density SNP panels and applied it to both the autosomal and X-chromosomal data. This study confirms that SNP panels can resolve long-standing missing person cases by matching against distant relatives, and highlights the utility of IBD segment detection as a supplement to LRs in such cases. Finally, it demonstrates the power of X-chromosomal SNP analysis when the pedigree permits it.