Capt. Everett Leland Yager of the U.S. Marine Corps was 30 years old when he embarked on a military training exercise back in California in 1951, and it’s fair to say the World War II vet probably had a lot of ideas about how he wanted to be remembered by his wife and two children should he be killed during his service. Full military honors, perhaps a somber memorial. A burial site where future generations could remember him.
He almost certainly didn’t expect any of his remains to wind up in a child’s rock collection. And yet that’s exactly what happened, according to genealogy experts.
The “unexpected” discovery was announced this week by the Ramapo College of New Jersey, where a genetics lab determined that Yager’s jawbone had somehow been mistaken for a rock during a “scavenging exploration” in Arizona. The “rock” was finally referred for forensic testing in January 2023, and students ultimately found it was a DNA match to Yager’s daughter.
