A new DNA analysis has identified the remains of Captain James Fitzjames, a Royal Navy officer who disappeared on a doomed Northwest Passage expedition in Canada more than 175 years ago.Fitzjames was part of an expedition led by Sir John Franklin that set out in 1845 from England with 129 men on two ships: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

In 1845, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror departed from England under the command of Sir John Franklin. The seasoned polar explorer and his crew of 128 other men were searching for the Northwest Passage,

Nigel Gambier has always been proud of his ancestor, who captained one of the ill-starred ships on Sir John Franklin's disastrous expedition in search of the Northwest Passage.

Another piece of the Franklin Expedition puzzle has dropped into place. However, like most new bits of information concerning this enduring exploration mystery, it raises more questions than it answers.

Fitzjames was the captain of HMS Erebus, one of two ships led by Franklin that disappeared in the Arctic nearly 180 years ago. That vessel and its sister ship HMS Terror left England in 1845 with 129 men and high hopes aboard.

The skeletal remains of a crew member from Sir John Franklin's 1845 Northwest Passage expedition was identified in a joint study by researchers from the University of Waterloo and Lakehead University.

Franklin’s expedition left Kent, England, on May 19, 1845, in the hopes of finally mapping a Northwestern route around the world to Asia. By the time the crew left their ships in 1848, Franklin had been dead for almost a year, so the 105 survivors turned to a senior officer, Commander James Fitzjames, to lead their deadly, futile march.

"Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June 1847 and the total loss by deaths in the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men." Those 105 survivors never made it home, and probably never off the island.