A young woman who died in 1891 in Sanford was identified as Edith Pattern during a press conference at the Sanford Police Department on Wednesday afternoon.
Her coffin and remains had been left behind after the city relocated the rest of the graves from Woodlawn Cemetery in Sanford in 1931.
Sanford High School history teacher, and local historian, Paul Auger helped collect and preserve Edith’s remains, championing her case and eventually bringing it to the DNA Doe Project for help with identification. The DNA Doe Project is a non-profit initiative that uses investigative genetic genealogy to identify John and Jane Doe unidentified remains.
In 2017, Auger and a group of high school students researched artifacts to try and get any information they could from what was left behind.
You can watch the entire press conference on WSSR-TV’s YouTube page here: