Kevin Lord of Saber Investigations details how a John Doe from the 1800s in Hudson County, Ohio was given back his name.
Astrea Forensics extracted DNA from the human remains. The DNA quantification showed hundreds of nanograms of DNA were available. This type of quantification reveals all DNA, whether human, microbial, or otherwise. As archaeological geneticists, we know that high amounts of DNA in old human remains can be a red flag! Bones, especially when buried in soil, are quickly colonized by environmental bacteria. The human DNA was nearly - but not completely - gone.
Read more at Crime Bench about how after the DNA extraction process - the samples were sent for DNA enrichment and sequencing, performed at Hudson Alpha, and then bioinformatic processing by Kevin Lord followed by hard work (and database luck!) by genetic genealogists, leading to the identification of Richard Bunts/Bunce, born in 1793.