I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long time now – since April 2018, when the Golden State Killer case changed the genealogy world forever. Since then, genealogy has been combined with law enforcement efforts to find the perpetrators of violent crimes, as well as to identify unknown remains. Unidentified remains are often left out of this discussion, and it’s important to include them because they are invariably the victims of violent crimes. Immediately genealogists and genealogy companies began picking sides, and what we’re left with now is two companies (FamilyTreeDNA and Gedmatch) that allow law enforcement to use their databases and give their users the choice of opting in to matching with these law enforcement kits.

I’m not going to pretend I’m writing from an unbiased position, because I have opted in to law enforcement matching and I believe it’s the right thing to do. My bottom line is that if someone commits a violent crime, and my DNA can help identify them, I want to help. I especially want to help the victims of these violent crimes and their families get closure. However, I’m not here to convince those staunchly against it, just to explain the process of what’s now called Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG).

Step 1: DNA is found at a crime scene and is thought to belong to the suspect/unidentified remains are found

Step 2: The DNA is uploaded to a national criminal DNA database (in the US, this is called CODIS). No matches are found.

Step 3: The DNA is then prepared to be uploaded to the DNA databases, much in the same way our swabs are prepared when we mail them in.

Step 4: Exactly like we would get from submitting our DNA, the crime scene DNA is processed and gets an ethnicity estimate and a list of matches. There’s a lot of nonsense about how police are “searching” DNA databases, when the reality is that they are only able to access the matches to the crime scene DNA (and at this point, the work has entirely been handed over to the genealogist anyway).

Step 5: Exactly like would be done for an adoptee, a genealogist will work the list of matches and put together a family tree for the crime scene DNA. However, unlike work with adoptees, there is no contact with the DNA matches. If you are a match to crime scene DNA, it’s not likely that you’ll know about it, except in very rare cases.

Step 6: If a suspect can be identified, a DNA sample will be taken and compared to the original crime scene DNA. In the case of unidentified remains, a close family member (ideally a parent or child) will be asked to test.

Step 7: If the suspect’s DNA matches the crime scene DNA, they will be arrested and legal proceedings will take place.

If you feel, as I do, that you want the perpetrators and the victims to be identified, please upload your DNA to FTDNA and Gedmatch and opt in (here’s a good link for how to download and upload your DNA to and from various sites). It will only cost you the time it takes to do the downloading/uploading. If you have already done so, could you double check to make sure you’re still opted in, and add a family tree?