NEW YORK, Aug 9, (AP): Three 9/11 victims’ remains have newly been identified, officials said this week, as evolving DNA technology keeps making gradual gains in the nearly quarter-century-long effort to return the remains of the dead to their loved ones. New York City officials announced Thursday they had identified remains of Ryan D. Fitzgerald, a 26-year-old currency trader; Barbara A. Keating, a 72-year-old retired nonprofit executive; and another woman whose name authorities kept private at her family's request.

The three already were among the thousands of people long known to have died in the al-Qaida hijacked-plane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and long listed among the names on the National Sept 11 Memorial in New York City. But these families, like many others, never previously knew of any remains of their loved ones. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed when the hijackers crashed jetliners into the trade center’s twin towers, the Pentagon and a field in southwest Pennsylvania on 9/11.

More than 2,700 of the victims perished in the fiery collapse of the trade center's twin towers, and about 40% of those victims haven't had any remains identified. The new identifications were made through now-improved DNA testing of minute remains found more than 20 years ago amid the trade center wreckage, the city medical examiner's office said.

"Each new identification testifies to the promise of science and sustained outreach to families despite the passage of time," chief medical examiner Dr. Jason Graham said in a statement. "We continue this work as our way of honoring the lost.” Keating's son, Paul Keating, told media outlets he was amazed and impressed by the enduring endeavor. "It’s just an amazing feat, gesture," he told the New York Post.

He said genetic material from part of his mother’s hairbrush was matched to DNA samples from relatives. A bit of his mother's ATM card was the only other trace of her ever recovered from the debris, he said. Barbara Keating was a passenger on Boston-to-Los Angeles-bound American Airlines Flight 11 when hijackers slammed it into the World Trade Center. She was headed home to Palm Springs, California, after spending the summer on Massachusetts' Cape Cod.