Identification of Booth's body

[Steve Whitlock]

I'm not interested in a protracted debate of entrenched positions, and am only offering a method to possibly prove or disprove that John Wilkes Booth was correctly identified.

The mtdna struck my interest due to some team research I did for establishing the maternal line of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of President Lincoln. More recently I also did research to establish the mtdna of Maj Henry Reed Rathbone, who was seriously slashed and bled profusely when he tried to apprehend John Wilkes Booth in Lincoln's theater box. Whose blood is on the presumed Lincoln artifacts, Lincoln's or Rathbone's? That can be determined now.

Having done that research I know the value of mtdna, and I agree with Mick that it depends on the condition of the hair, and with dna testing advances the hair follicle may not be necessary.

Steve W.