The analysis required approximately 1,500 hours of genetic genealogy research, according to Dr. Press’s account. The degraded profile produced matches with distant relatives — people who appeared to share small genetic segments consistent with third-cousin or more distant relationships. Working from these distant matches, the team began the patient process of building family trees: identifying the most likely common ancestors of the matched individuals, constructing the branches of those trees forward in time, and looking for a candidate whose biography was consistent with what was known about the deceased.
The work eventually led to a convergence point. The shared genetic segments among the distant cousin matches pointed consistently toward a family with roots in Indiana — specifically toward the descendants of Alpha and Silas Nichols. Robert Ivan Nichols, born in 1926 in New Albany, Indiana, to Silas and Alpha Nichols, fit the profile: the right approximate age, the right geographic origin, the right surname, and a biography — last confirmed contact with family in 1965, never heard from again — consistent with the story of a man who had disappeared and reinvented himself.
The research also produced a more specific lead. Investigators were able to link Nichols to a false address on a rental agreement from his years of living under his real name — a detail that, combined with the genealogical evidence, pointed specifically to Robert Ivan Nichols as the candidate.
—
## Phillip Nichols and the Confirmation
In March 2018, acting on the genealogical leads developed by the DNA Doe Project, investigators located Phillip Nichols — one of the three sons Robert Nichols had left behind in 1964. Phil was living in Cincinnati, Ohio.