Enlarge / Portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820 (credit: Beethoven-Haus Bonn)

Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the greatest composers of all time, but he was plagued throughout his life by myriad health problems, most notably going mostly deaf by 1818. These issues certainly affected his career and emotional state, so much so that Beethoven requested— via a letter addressed to his brothers—that his favorite physician examine his body after his death to determine the cause of all his suffering.

Nearly two centuries after the composer's demise, scientists say they have sequenced his genome based on preserved locks of hair. While the analysis of that genome failed to pinpoint a definitive cause of Beethoven's hearing loss or chronic digestive problems, he did have numerous risk factors for liver disease and was infected with hepatitis B, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. The researchers also found genetic evidence that somewhere in the Beethoven paternal line, an ancestor had an extramarital affair.

“We cannot say definitely what killed Beethoven, but we can now at least confirm the presence of significant heritable risk and an infection with hepatitis B virus,” said co-author Johannes Krause , an expert in ancient DNA at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. “We can also eliminate several other less plausible genetic causes.” The fully sequenced genome will be made publicly available so other researchers can have access to conduct future studies.

Enlarge / The body of Ruth Marie Terry as she was found in 1974 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. (credit: Public domain )

A 12-year-old chasing after her barking dog discovered the mutilated body of a woman in the Race Point Dunes of Provincetown, Massachuestts, on July 26, 1974. Law enforcement was unable to identify the victim, who became known as the "Lady of Dunes." Nearly 50 years later, on October 31, the FBI announced it finally identified the woman as Ruth Marie Terry , a native of Tennessee who was 37 at the time of her death.

The identification was made via genetic genealogy methods: a combination of DNA testing and profiling with traditional genealogical analysis to trace family trees—the same approach used to identify the Golden State Killer (former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo) in 2018. According to the FBI, Terry was born in 1936; had "connections" to the states of California, Massachusetts, and Michigan; and was a "daughter, sister, aunt, wife, and mother." Further details have not been released out of respect for her family—and also because the murder investigation is ongoing.

“While we have identified Ruth as the victim of this horrific murder, it does not ease the pain for her family—nothing can," Joseph Bonavolonta, a special agent from the Boston branch of the FBI, said at a press conference announcing the identification. "But hopefully, they answer some questions while we continue to look for her killer. This is, without a doubt, a major break in the investigation that will hopefully bring us all closer to identifying the killer.”

Enlarge / During the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the city's African American Greenwood district was destroyed by white rioters. (credit: Universal History Archive / Getty Images)

On the night of May 31, 1921, a white mob descended on the affluent Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The mob had gathered after the arrest of a Black teenager named Dick Rowland, who had been falsely accused of assaulting a white girl in an elevator. In one of the worst episodes of racial violence in US history, thousands of white vigilantes took to the streets of Greenwood with torches, guns, and bombs.

In a matter of hours, the rioters destroyed more than a thousand homes and hundreds of businesses across 35 blocks of the Greenwood district—so prosperous it was called “Black Wall Street.” Historians estimate that dozens to as many as 300 Black people were killed during the massacre. Some are believed to have been buried in unmarked graves. In 2020, the city of Tulsa finally began excavations to search for those graves. So far, archaeologists have exhumed 19 sets of human remains at a local cemetery that may be linked to the massacre.

Now, scientists working for the city have obtained enough usable DNA from two individuals to potentially learn their identities. The researchers say genetic material from these two people’s living descendants could help identify the nameless victims. “These people deserve their names. They deserve to be identified. Their families deserve to know who they are,” says Danny Hellwig, director of laboratory development for Intermountain Forensics, a nonprofit laboratory based in Utah hired by Tulsa officials to do the DNA analysis.

Every person has their own story but they are also part of a collective family history. Gramps gives you the ability to record the many details of an individual’s life as well as the complex relationships between various people, places and events.

A summary of the active person’s parents, siblings, spouses and children is shown, which is a great way to graphically show children what their relationship is to others in the family.

The software is available for Linux, Windows and macOS, and works with standard GEDCOM genealogy files. If you're looking to self-host a web version of your family tree, then Webtrees is worth looking at.

See https://gramps-project.org/

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