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Category: Investigation
Just because something is legal does not mean it is right. In the world of forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG) this truth is playing out in ways that should alarm anyone who values privacy and trust. Picture this: a law-enforcement agency, determined to crack a case, quietly searches a genetic genealogy database. The database’s terms and conditions could not be clearer—law-enforcement use…
Should professional genealogists, by necessity, be included in the forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG) process? If there is any hope of ensuring that FIGG continues to be a trusted tool able to be used by law-enforcement for solving cold case homicides and sexual assaults, as well as the identification of unidentified-human-remains (UHR), then the answer needs to be a resounding ‘YES.’  …
It is important to realise that genealogical DNA databases are viewed and used by law enforcement investigators in exactly the same way as other sources or databases that are non-genealogical related. That is, they are used to establish a pool of ‘persons-of-interest,’ and then through old-fashioned detective work, that pool is narrowed down to a few possible suspects that will undergo…
Following on from Part 1, and having established that the use of genealogical DNA bases as a source of direct identification evidence of a suspect in Court is not accepted by the Court, attention will now turn to how genealogical DNA databases are used by investigators to widen a pool of suspects when the pool of suspects, identified through more ‘routine’ investigative techniques, has gone…
There has been considerable writing over recent months concerning the use, by law enforcement investigators, of genealogical DNA databases as a tool for the solving of cold case serial crimes, such as homicides and sexual assault, and whether the use of such databases for non-genealogical purposes is at odds with the purpose for the creation of the databases in the first place, and constitutes a…
As this is my first post on this website, I wanted to address the basic rule of investigation before considering the more specific details of a forensic approach to genealogical research. At the most basic level, an investigation can fall short for a number of reasons, which can include a lack of evidence to support, or negate, a theory an investigator may have about an event. A lack of evidence…