Although it’s mainly been a tool for cracking years-old cold cases, genetic genealogy was recently used by police to arrest Bryan Kohberger for the November 2022 murders of four college students at the University of Idaho. (Kohberger has been charged but has not yet entered a plea.)
But the technique is controversial because it relies on commercial databases that were designed to help hobbyists do genealogy research, not assist police in investigating crimes. That’s why two genealogists, CeCe Moore and Margaret Press, have just launched a new nonprofit DNA database specifically designed to aid law enforcement. They’re hoping enough people will lend their data to the project, called the DNA Justice Foundation, for it to become a useful crime-solving tool.
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The two genealogists admit they’re starting their database from scratch. The more DNA profiles in a database, the better. So far, fewer than 200 people have uploaded their data to the DNA Justice Foundation, but Moore thinks they could get to 100,000 profiles—enough for the database to be useful—in a few months. At that point, Moore and Press think they would begin to allow law enforcement access.
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