DNA Doe Project

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Prior to my own company, I spent several years doing investigative genetic genealogy for other companies, such as the DNA Doe Project and Identifinders International.

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While working for those companies, I held the role of team leader, senior forensic genealogist, teacher, mentor, case auditor, intake specialist, and lab liaison.

And so there's a lot of There's a lot of really tragic stories in there and a lot of unresolved mysteries.

Other groups would be DNA Doe Project, the Charlie Project, which was started by basically just a person who cared a lot about the subject and wanted to get involved.

So there's really great groups.

And if you're overseas, it varies country by country, but...

In her new role, she's leading the broader case management program, overseeing staff and volunteer teams, and taking a more active part in building relationships with the agencies that bring cases to the center.

She's been doing this work since 2018, starting as a volunteer with the DNA Doe Project in the field's earliest days.

And in the years since, she has helped restore the names of unidentified people and worked violent crime cases and exonerations.

This year, she was accredited by the AIGG Board.

So one of the first people I helped was her, and I was able to find her biological father in about a month.

That was my first journey.

Tracy first gained forensic investigative genetic genealogy experience as a volunteer at DNA Doe Project.

We have discussed their work on the show many times in the past.

Once the DNA extraction was complete, the extracts were sent to Hudson Alpha Discovery Life Sciences for sequencing, and then on to Dr. Gregory Magoon, contracting through Full Genomes Corporation for bioinformatics.

Special Agent Joe Welsh of the Wisconsin Department of Justice had contacted the DNA Doe Project in January 2019 to line up the nonprofit organization for IgG analysis once the SNP was ready.

So after the sequencing and advanced bioinformatics, the resultant's SNP profile was sent to the DDP.

Research by DDP volunteer genetic genealogists began on February 25, 2020.

48 Hours interviewed the DDP genealogist who worked on the case, Robin Espenson.

She said...

When the cases come to DNA Doe Project, everything has already been exhausted.

Genetic genealogy is the last resort.

They brought in external help.

Specifically, they brought in the DNA Doe Project and the University of New Hampshire.

A huge collaboration.

Yeah.

Like you have the code, but you still don't have a name.

And that is exactly where the third partner steps in.

DNA Doe Project.

Yes, the DNA Doe Project.

And once there's a name to test, police collected DNA from a living relative and compare the two directly one to one.

So the DNA Doe Project was founded in 2017 in Sebastopol, California.

as a nonprofit set up to do one thing, give John and Jane Doe's their names back using genetic genealogy.

Now, co-founder Margaret Press, PhD, was a writer and genealogist, and co-founder Colleen Fitzpatrick, PhD, was a retired nuclear physicist who had moved into forensic genealogy.

A close relative of King's living in Florida volunteered a sample of her own DNA to be compared against the body.

And on April 9th, 2018, the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab confirmed the match.

And two days after that, on Wednesday, April 11th, the Miami County Sheriff's Office, the County Coroner's Office, and the DNA Doe Project stood up together at a press conference in Troy.

And the woman from the ditch in Greenlee Road was Marcia Lenore King.

Today, we're dividing this challenge into two expert voices in both recruiting and development who have helped their organization build strong talent strategies.

We have Amy Jauman, HR Director for the DNA Doe Project, and Amber Watts, Chief Everboarding Officer of Radical Growth Works.

Welcome to Honest HR, Amy and Amber.

Thank you.

So I think that's a great place to start is to just let's actually look at some of the numbers, be sad about how wrong you were about how you were doing.

That's OK. We'll just hang out in that moment for just a little bit and then start and go to the dashboard and build and all that.

The other thing that I would add, so the DNA Doe Project, so it's a nonprofit organization, so it's a little different, but I think another really important question is when we're losing people, so when someone leaves our organization, It's important to ask, did we not have a path for them? Did we not connect with them? But it's also important to ask, have they gone on to do other things that are amazing in the field? Like, have we contributed to our greater mission? because where we were just wasn't a fit for that person.

And I talk about that because I think that kind of grace is important for leaders because they will work so hard and invest in people and then they leave and that leader thinks they failed.

There's one more development that is, that is, you know, a positive development.

In 2024 or so, just two years ago, the Cuyahoga County Chief Medical Examiner, who's a guy named Dr. Thomas Gilson, said that they're gonna team up with the Doe Project, DNA Doe Project.

Okay.

And they exhumed, uh, after exhuming the victim's bodies, many of whom were buried in a potter's field, they are going to extract DNA to try to determine the identities of some of these folks.