GEDmatch

We've seen it used now in this new sort of technology called forensic investigative genetic genealogy.

where law enforcement goes into recreational databases, like GEDmatch is a popular one.

These are databases like Ancestry or 23andMe.

It's not those specific databases, but where people submit voluntarily their DNA and they use that to make connections to try to build out these elaborate family trees to find possible suspects.

That's what they did.

They did the genetic genealogy where they would take that DNA, upload it into GEDmatch, which is one of your it's like your Ancestry.com, your 23andMe's.

They upload it into GEDmatch.

And if they could find a match, it doesn't matter what percentage it is, they can work with very minute people.

what they call cinnamorgans, again, fancy words that I don't understand, but they can build a family tree backwards, and then they turn around and build it back forward again, and They can locate who's not fitting into this picture.

Something else that's important, and we've talked about the different groups that assist with the solves, but it also takes time.

Family members putting their DNA in the system, because in that case, we had successful DNA uploaded.

But within a week, we got the hit through the GEDmatch that actually came from Ancestry.

Nonetheless, Othram was able to develop a SNP profile.

TPS's internal cold case unit, which includes in-house genealogists, uploaded the profile in early 2023 to both Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch and learned that Jane Doe's indigenous ancestry connected her to Cree communities along James Bay and to Fisher River Cree Nation in Manitoba.

The top match in both Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch was a man who shared 304 centimorgans of DNA with Jane Doe.

Several other matches shared in the 200 and 100 centimorgan range.

I know what you're thinking.

Your DNA.

If you want to help us, get your DNA into GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA.

Mega DNA databases such as Ancestry and 23andMe don't allow their sites to be used for identifying the deceased.

GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA are the only websites and DNA databases that investigative genealogists are permitted to use.

And if you're one of the many millions who have already taken a DNA test through a company like Ancestry or 23andMe, you can download your raw DNA data and upload it to GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA for free.

Ada is a Casefile Presents production.

Written and reported by me, Olivia LaVoie.

In 2018, investigators executed a wildly innovative and highly controversial technique.

They took a degraded sample of the killer's crime scene DNA and uploaded the genetic profile to an open source genealogy website called GEDmatch.

And to be clear, GEDmatch isn't some locked down police database.

No, not at all.

It is a site where everyday people, people who took commercial swab tests just to find out if their ancestors were from Ireland or Italy, voluntarily upload their raw data to find distant relatives.

there are these public websites where ordinary members of the public upload their own DNA results, the kind you get from a home ancestry kit, in order to find relatives and explore their family history.

One of these was a site called GEDmatch, or GEDmatch.

The investigators uploaded the killer's DNA profile to GEDmatch, and they waited to see who he might be related to.

Think about how strange and new this idea was.

For 40 years, the killer's own DNA had been useless to them because it only matched him and he was not in any database.