DNA sought to close 1926 US missing-person case

Marvin A. Clark vanished during a short trip to Portland on Halloween weekend 1926, but the search to find out what happened to him may finally be drawing to a close nearly 90 years later.
Clark's disappearance is one of the oldest active missing-person cases in the United States, according to a federally funded database of missing persons.
Investigators know Clark is not alive he'd be more than 160 years old but they believe they have his remains. Now, they need DNA samples from Clark's hard-to-find descendants to close the case.
Despite the age of the remains, investigators were able to get a good DNA profile, said Dr. Nici Vance of the Oregon state medical examiner's office. Volunteer genealogists then found three great-great-grandchildren on the paternal side.

The results were encouraging, but not definitive, Vance said. Now, "they're looking for a maternal link, someone on his mother's side, and following that lineage to shore it up and make the statistics a little better," she said.
"There's an association there, but it's not strong at this point." Vance entered Clark's name into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, which provides a central repository of information about missing persons and unidentified decedent records.
"There might have been an item of jewelry that was found with that person that could trigger a memory of a family member," she said.