After a decade of work tracing DNA back multiple generations, the remains of a Vancouver soldier have been identified more than 100 years after he died in France.
The remains of Cpl. Percy Howarth, a soldier in the First World War, were discovered during a munitions clearing process in Vendin-le-Vieil, France, in 2011, but it would take 10 years of experts digging through his family tree to find a living relative from his maternal line before he could be identified.
Howarth was 23 years old when he fought with the 7th Canadian Infantry Battalion in the Battle of Hill 70 near Lens, France, in August 1917, and was presumed to have died in the fight….