A St. John's soldier killed in France 108 years ago has caught the attention of historians

A 108-year-old wartime mystery that might have connections to Harvey Road in St. John's is puzzling researchers as they attempt to identify the remains of a soldier found in northern France nine years ago.

They're desperately trying to locate the descendants of a missing soldier — Pte. George Patrick Kirk, or a variation of that name — with Newfoundland and Labrador roots in hopes of solving the mystery.

"We would love to be able to give [this unknown soldier] his name back. He's been unknown for a long time," said Alexandra McKinnon, a Department of National Defence historian with the casualty identification program.

In April 2016, specialists were conducting a cautionary search for explosives in advance of a construction project near Loos-en-Gohelle, a suburb of Lens. Such searches are common because Loos was the site of fierce fighting between the Canadian and German armies as the First World War raged in the summer of 1917.

During the excavation, a full set of human remains were found in what used to be a German position known as Humbug Trench.

Included with the remains were the solder's boots, British and German coins, and some very personal items such as a comb and a nail file. But the key artifacts were uniform collar badges that identified the soldier as a member of the 13th Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada).

The remains are those of a man between the ages of 20 and 24, and a height of between 5-foot-5 and 5-foot-8-and-a-half.

No other remains were found during the search.

For years, McKinnon and other members of the casualty identification program have been carrying out historical and forensic research in an effort to identify the remains.

The initial list of potential candidates was 46, because that's how many members of the Quebec-based 13th Battalion are missing from what's known as the Battle of Hill 70.

But that number has gradually shrunk as researchers ruled out one potential unknown soldier after another, both by studying the bones and, in some cases, comparing the DNA of the unknown soldier with surviving family members of those missing soldiers from the 13th Battalion.

McKinnon said she's tracked down family members of those missing soldiers from all over Canada, Scotland and the United States.

"We've been able to eliminate most of those candidates," said McKinnon.

Now the researchers are seized on one name in particular — Pte. George Patrick Kirk, or possibly Patrick Quirk — because he matches the age and height of the discovered remains.