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GEDmatch is a public website and online service with DNA and genealogy tools for comparing autosomal DNA in personal family research and for law enforcement in forensic investigative research. Users upload their DNA data files from various genealogy testing companies, and the data is used for DNA comparison of other users and by law enforcement, putting GEDmatch in focus of news media and regulatory bodies for their failure to protect user data privacy and allowing law enforcement to compare DNA without user consent. Originally founded by two amateur genealogists, GEDmatch was acquired in 2020 by Chinese
Qiagen QIAGEN N.V. is a German-founded multinational provider of sample and assay technologies for molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research, and pharmaceutical research. The company operates in more than 35 offices in over 25 countries ...
and is now operated by their compan
Verogen Inc
a forensic testing company specialized in law enforcement forensic investigative DNA research within the same
corporate group A corporate group, company group or business group, also formally known as a group of companies, is a collection of parent and subsidiary corporations that function as a single economic entity through a common source of control. These types of gr ...
. GEDmatch gained significant media coverage on multiple occasions, notably in April 2018 when it was used by
law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...
to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case in
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. This case led other law enforcement agencies to start using GEDmatch for DNA comparison of suspect DNA in their investigations of violent crimes, making it "the de facto DNA and genealogy database for all of law enforcement", according to ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...
''s Sarah Zhang. When GEDmatch caught the attention of regulators it was discovered that law enforcement had, with the help of insiders at GEDmatch, been allowed to run DNA comparison analysis on all users regardless of whether the users had chosen to "opt-out" from such comparisons.


History

GEDmatch was founded in 2010 by Curtis Rogers, a retired businessman, and John Olson, a transportation engineer, in
Lake Worth, Florida Lake Worth Beach, previously named Lake Worth, is a city in east-central Palm Beach County, Florida, United States, located about north of Miami. The city's name is derived from the body of water along its eastern border known as the Lake Wort ...
, with its main purpose being to help "amateur and professional researchers and genealogists", including adoptees searching for birth parents. Users can upload their autosomal DNA test data from commercial DNA companies to identify potential relatives who had also uploaded their DNA data. Names of participants may be hidden by the use of aliases, but each account must have an email address attached to it. Users may share the ancestry of each DNA participant by uploading a
GEDCOM FamilySearch GEDCOM, or simply GEDCOM ( , acronym of ''Genealogical Data Communication''), is an open file format and the de facto standard specification for storing genealogical data. It was developed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
file containing that person's ancestry, or by linking to the assigned DNA kit number from that person's profile at WikiTree, a free, shared global family tree. Tools available on the GEDmatch site include the ability to sort results by the closest matches to a user's autosomal DNA, determining whether one's matches also match to each other, using a genetic-distance calculator, estimating the number of generations to the most recent common ancestor, determining whether one's parents are related, and using various ethnicity calculators. These tools are not supposed to disclose raw genetic data to other users though it has happened on multiple occasions (see below). Tier 1 premium membership includes triangulation, matching segment search and a custom comparison system. By May 2018, the GEDmatch database had 929,000 genetic profiles, with 7,300 users who paid $10 a month for Tier 1 premium membership, which was used to pay for the $200,000/year server costs. In 2018, the website was still being run by Rogers and Olsen with five volunteers; it had no full-time staff. Rogers said in 2018 that the site had already helped 10,000 adoptees find their biological parents. As of December 9, 2019, GEDmatch was acquired by Verogen, Inc., a sequencing company solely dedicated to forensic science. For the 1.2 million DNA profiles, a new version of the existing site will focus on solving crimes. How much GEDmatch continues to serve genetic genealogical research has been heavily discussed since then.
BuzzFeed News ''BuzzFeed News'' was an American news website published by BuzzFeed beginning in 2011. It ceased posting new hard news content in May 2023. It published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was strong ...
reported that Verogen hopes to monetize the site by charging for access to the database and tools for DNA analysis. Founder Curtis Rogers, in a website statement, announced that "basic tools will remain free", he will remain involved in all aspects of the business, and Verogen will commit to the vision of a consumer genealogy site and take care of infrastructure and security/privacy. At the same time, Rogers claimed that "genealogy has made our communities safer by putting violent criminals behind bars". As of September 2020, there were about 1.45 million users on the site, and by October, the site had led to an estimated 150 arrests in cold cases.


Data Privacy at GEDmatch

User
data privacy Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data ...
and
confidentiality Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise sometimes executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access to or places restrictions on the distribution of certain types of information. Legal confidentiality By law, la ...
of user data especially within genealogic testing continue to be a hot topic, and is something to seriously consider before giving your DNA profile and other personal information to companies. Handling of user data at GEDmatch has come into question and lead to attention from
regulatory authorities A regulatory agency (regulatory body, regulator) or independent agency (independent regulatory agency) is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous jurisdiction over some area of human activity in a licensing and regu ...
, and the failures at GEDmatch shows that even if you opt out, and the company has in place all the policies, your data can still be accessed and misused.


Data Privacy Policy Changes

As of May 2025, the terms of service (dated 22 November 2024) that apply between users and Verogen Inc operating GEDmatch, state that uploaded DNA data "remains the property of the person who uploaded it" and the user has to select privacy level for each DNA file uploaded; ''Private'' (no comparison to other people), ''Opt-In'' (allow comparison to all in the database, including those submitted by law enforcement), ''Opt-Out'' (allow comparison to other users but not to law enforcement) or Personal Research (compare to other users, but don't show your profile on reports for your matches). Prior policies of GEDmatch include the privacy statement as of April 2018 (under their previous owner) which stated that GEDmatch will "provide DNA and genealogy tools for comparison and research purposes" and that it "by its very nature, requires the sharing of information. Because of that, users participating in this site should expect that their information will be shared with other users". Showing that DNA data sharing and comparing with ''other users'' has been clearly stated by GEDmatch. In May 2019, GEDmatch began requiring people who had uploaded their DNA to its site to make a selection in their privacy settings, either
opt-out The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This option is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as e-mail marketing or direct mail. A list of th ...
or the opposite,
opt-in Opt-in email is a term used when someone is not initially added to an emailing list and is instead given the option to join the emailing list. Typically, this is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Opt-out emails do not ask ...
, in order to allow law-enforcement agencies to access their DNA profile and user information for their DNA comparison in forensic investigations. This change in privacy policy was expected to limit law enforcement agencies' abilities to identify suspects using genetic genealogy. By May 2020, about 260,000 GEDmatch users had opted in. Under the updated policy, investigators could not quietly upload a fake profile to a genealogy website, as some had done in hopes of finding a suspect's distant relatives, without first identifying themselves. The site itself must have informed its users that law-enforcement agencies may search their data. The policy also barred federal investigators from using a suspect's DNA profile to look for genes related to disease risks or psychological traits. Another provision attempted to limit situations in which federal investigators secretly take a DNA sample from a suspect's relative—from a discarded cup or tissue, for example—to help hone in on a suspect. The policy said that the person must give their informed consent unless federal investigators have obtained a search warrant. These guidelines applied to federal investigators and federally funded investigations but did not apply to state or local law-enforcement agencies the vast majority of investigations.


Data Privacy Breaches

GEDmatch has failed to maintain user data security and confidentiality with incidents leading to attention from regulatory authorities, despite user privacy settings and policies implemented by GEDmatch (requiring users to opt-in). Access for law enforcement to the user data was given without informed consent; negative user reactions led to the implementation of an opt-in system for law-enforcement matching. For new uploads, "opt in" is the default selection actively recommended for users, shedding doubt on whether this could be truly "opt-in", which requires action in order to signal one's interest in what is being offered or proposed. Moreover, what is being opted into is not explicitly stated. In November 2023, GEDmatch put out a press release in response to their failure to maintain data privacy, and breach by GEDmatch of the terms of service. Forensic genealogy practitioners of GEDmatch had circumvented GEDmatch user privacy settings (see below) and had allowed law enforcement to conduct DNA comparison in violation with user settings. This had enabled law enforcement to access DNA profiles of users on GEDmatch who had ''not'' opted in to such law enforcement investigative comparisons. In addition, these practitioners had asked law enforcement to keep this misuse secret, had trained others how to use it, and even doctored reports to prevent the misuse from becoming known. Through this misuse, information about user's genetic relationships (which were not supposed to be available for law-enforcement investigations) were made available for comparison, despite the user having denied such use. In November 2019, a Florida judge approved a police request for a warrant to search the database of GEDmatch. The warrant was served by law enforcement in Florida, who demanded access to ''all'' user DNA profiles, including those of the vast majority of users who had not opted in to allow law-enforcement access (at that time, approximately 185,000 of 1.3 million users had opted in). GEDmatch complied with this warrant. In September 2019, the U.S Department of Justice released interim guidelines governing when federal investigators or federally funded investigations could use genetic genealogy to track down suspects in serious crimes. This first-ever policy covering how these databases should be used in law-enforcement attempts to balance public safety and privacy concerns. The policy said that “forensic genetic genealogy” should generally be used only for violent crimes such as murder and rape, as well as to identify human remains. (The policy permitted broader use if the ancestry database's policy allowed such searches.) Investigators should first exhaust traditional crime-solving methods, including searching their own criminal DNA databases.


Usage by law enforcement

In December 2018, police forces in the United States said that, with the help of GEDmatch and genetic genealogy, they had been able to find suspects in a total of 28 cold cases of murder and rape that year. Also in December 2018,
Family Tree DNA FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database ...
allowed law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, to upload DNA profiles from crime scenes to help solve cold crimes. As of that time, GEDmatch was not the only site that could be used by law enforcement officials to solve crimes using genetic genealogy. White people are overrepresented on GEDmatch and are believed to be underrepresented in
CODIS The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is the United States national DNA database created and maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. CODIS consists of three levels of information; Local DNA Index Systems (LDIS) where DNA profiles ori ...
, the FBI's collection of DNA samples pulled from crime scenes, arrestees, and criminal suspects. Thus, GEDmatch may be especially effective in facilitating the arrests of white suspects who might otherwise have eluded law enforcement. On May 18, 2019, GEDmatch revised its privacy statement to users regarding the collection and use of genetic information, including the circumstances in which it may cooperate with law-enforcement use of its database. As of September 2020, GEDmatch has been credited for helping facilitate nearly 120 cold-case arrests and for helping in 11 "Jane and John Doe" identifications across the United States.


General cases solved or suspects identified using GEDmatch

* California law enforcement investigating the Golden State Killer case uploaded the DNA profile of the suspected serial rapist/killer from an intact
rape kit A rape kit or rape test kit is a package of items used by medical, police or other personnel for gathering and preserving physical evidence following an instance or allegation of sexual assault. The evidence collected from the victim can aid the ...
in Ventura County to GEDmatch. It identified 10 to 20 distant relatives of the Golden State Killer, and a team of five investigators working with genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter used those results to construct a large family tree, which led them to identify former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo as a suspect. Investigators acquired samples of his DNA from items he discarded outside his home, one of which definitively matched that of the killer. The process took about four months, from the time the first matches appeared on GEDmatch to the time when DeAngelo was arrested in April 2018. * In September 2018, Roy Charles Waller was arrested as a suspect in a series of more than ten rapes between 1991 and 2006 in Northern California (the "Norcal Rapist"), after DNA evidence from crime scenes were matched on GEDmatch to a relative. Police then constructed a family tree and, using the known characteristics of the rapist, narrowed the suspects down to Waller. It took little more than a week to identify and arrest the suspect. He was charged with 40 counts of rape. *In May 2019, a
grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
in
Orange County, North Carolina Orange County is a County (United States), county located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 148,696. Its county seat is Hil ...
, indicted John Russell Whitt on
first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse ...
charges related to the death of his son, Robert "Bobby" Adam Whitt. Bobby Whitt's skeleton was discovered under a billboard on Interstate 85-40 in September 1998; an autopsy showed that he had died by
strangulation Strangling or strangulation is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain by restricting the flow of oxygen through the trachea. Fatal strangulation typically occurs ...
. Although the case remained open, and hundreds of investigators worked on it over the yearsincluding forensic artist Frank Benderthe remains were unidentified until Barbara Rae-Venter analyzed a DNA sample that suggested the boy had one white parent and one Asian parent. Using online genealogical services, she located a cousin in
Hawai'i Hawaii ( ; ) is an island state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only state not on the North American mainland, th ...
, who was able to provide the boy's name. The family had not reported him missing because they believed his mother, Myoung Hwa Cho, had taken him back to South Korea, where she was from. Further investigation revealed that Cho's body had been located in
Spartanburg County, South Carolina Spartanburg County is a county located on the northwestern border of the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 327,997, making it the fifth-most populous county in South Carolina. Its county seat is Spartan ...
, on May 13, 1998. She had been suffocated and had ligature marks around her wrists. John Whitt has confessed to both murders; he is currently serving a federal prison sentence at the Ashland FCI for
armed robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person o ...
and will not be eligible for release on that charge until 2037. *In 2020, in
Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, police used GEDmatch to identify the murderer of Christine Jessop.


Parabon Nanolabs

In cooperation with American law enforcement organizations,
Parabon NanoLabs Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that develops nanopharmaceuticals and provides DNA phenotyping services for law enforcement organizations. History Parabon NanoLabs, a subsidiary of Parabon Computation, a ...
started uploading
DNA evidence Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
from crime scenes to GEDmatch in an attempt to identify perpetrators. In November 2018, Parabon was reported to be working on 200 such cases. In May 2019, they said they were solving cold cases at the rate of about one per week.


DNA Doe Project

Two genealogical researchers, Dr. Colleen M. Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press, started the DNA Doe Project in 2017 to identify unknown bodies using GEDmatch. They use volunteers to construct the sometimes very large family trees resulting from genetic data, in order to identify missing persons. Their successes include the following: * Identification of the " Buckskin girl", a young woman found murdered beside a road in
Miami County, Ohio Miami County is a county located in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 108,774. Its county seat is Troy. The county is named in honor of the Miami people. Miami County is part of the Dayton, OH Metropolitan S ...
, in 1981, as Marcia King. She was identified by autosomal DNA through GEDmatch and genetic genealogy in March 2018. * They also investigated a man called Joseph Newton Chandler III, found to have stolen the identity of an eight-year-old in 1978 and committed suicide in 2002 in Eastlake, Ohio, obtained a sample of his DNA and uploaded it to GEDmatch. By the genetic results, researchers identified him as Robert Ivan Nichols. This finding was revealed in late June 2018. * They helped identify " Sheep Flats Jane Doe", a homicide victim from July 1982, who was identified as 33-year-old Mary Silvani in the summer of 2018. She had been raped and murdered near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Washoe County Sheriff's Office withheld her name until May 2019, when they had also confirmed the identity of her killer, James Richard Curry. He had died in jail in January 1983, after confessing to two other murders and being arrested in a third. He was also identified through genetic genealogy, with the aid of the DNA Doe Project and GEDmatch. * In December 2018, they identified a man using the alias " Alfred Jake Fuller" when he was found dead in 2014 in a
Kennebec County, Maine Kennebec County is a county located in the South-central portion of the U.S. state of Maine. At the 2020 census, the population was 123,642. Its county seat is Augusta, the state capital. The county was established on February 20, 1799, from ...
, hotel apartment. He had died of natural causes. * In December 2018, they identified " Anaheim Jane Doe", who had been found murdered in 1987 in
Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, United States, part of the Greater Los Angeles area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the tenth-most ...
, Orange County, California. The police announced the victim's identify as 20-year-old Tracey Coreen Hobson. * In January 2019, they identified " Lavender Doe", a young woman whose burned body had been found near a road in
Gregg County, Texas Gregg County is a county located in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 124,239. Its county seat is Longview. The county is named after John Gregg, a Confederate general killed in action du ...
, in 2006. East Texas officials announced that she was 21-year-old Dana Lynn Dodd. Joseph Burnette had confessed to her murder in 2018 but had not known her identity. * In February 2019, a man called " Rock County John Doe" was identified using GEDmatch. His body had been found in 1995 (it was estimated he had died in 1994) in Rock County, near Clinton, Wisconsin. The police medical examiner concluded that he had died from hypothermia. * In March 2019, the DNA Doe Project identified "Butler County Jane Doe" as 61-year-old Darlene Wilson Norcross. Norcross' body had been found in a wooded area near West Chester, Ohio, on March 7, 2015. She had never been reported as missing, and the police were unable to determine her cause of death. * In March 2019, the project identified "Annie Doe" as 16-year-old Annie Marie Lehman who was found on August 19, 1971, in Cave Junction, Oregon, near the border with California. Some debris was noted to partially conceal the remains. The project was through collaboration with NCMEC and
NamUs The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) is a national clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases throughout the United States. NamUs is funded and administered by the National Inst ...
. * In June 2019, "Vicky" Doe (one of serial killer Shawn Grate's first victims), murdered between 2002 and 2006 was identified as 23-year-old Dana Nicole Lowrey. * In July 2019, "Belle in the Well", the remains of a woman found strangled in a well in
Chesapeake, Ohio Chesapeake is a village in Lawrence County, Ohio, United States. The population was 765 as of the 2020 census. It lies across the Ohio River from Huntington, West Virginia, at the mouth of Symmes Creek. The Robert C. Byrd Bridge across the O ...
, in 1981, was identified as Louise Virginia Peterson Flesher. Flesher was about 65 years old at the time of her murder and was born in West Virginia.


Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Genetic Genealogy Program

In 2018, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement set up a Genetic Genealogy Program to use GEDmatch to solve cold cases. They reported in 2019 that they had solved four cases. By the end of 2020, the program had led to 10 arrests/identifications and closed several more cases.


Law Enforcement DNA comparison

After the arrest of the suspect in the Golden State Killer Case, co-founder Curtis Rogers said he spent weeks trying to figure out the ethics of the situation and legal options to pursue. He concluded that they did not have the resources to require police to obtain court orders to use the website. Rogers said: "It has always been GEDmatch's policy to inform users that the database could be used for other uses, as set forth in the Site Policy", and that "While the database was created for genealogical research, it is important that GEDmatch participants understand the possible uses of their DNA, including identification of relatives that have committed crimes or were victims of crimes." In late May 2018, GEDmatch updated its policy to say law enforcement could use the database to identify perpetrators of a "violent crime", meaning "homicide or sexual assault", or to identify the remains of a deceased individual. The number of people uploading their DNA increased from 1,500 per day to 5,000 per day after the DeAngelo case went public. By November 2018, there were 1.2 million GEDmatch website users. In May 2019, GEDmatch was used to help with the arrest of a teenager who was charged with violent assault. This was the first and so far the last time GEDmatch had been used by Law Enforcement (and Parabon) for a case that did not involve homicide, rape, or kidnapping.
Civil libertarian Civil libertarianism is a strain of political thought that supports civil liberties and rights, or which emphasizes the supremacy of individual rights and personal freedoms over and against any kind of authority (such as a state, a corporat ...
s have said the use of websites such as GEDmatch by law enforcement raises legal and privacy concerns. Professor Rori Rohlfs at
San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...
noted that, whereas California police had to get a judge's permission to search the
CODIS The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is the United States national DNA database created and maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. CODIS consists of three levels of information; Local DNA Index Systems (LDIS) where DNA profiles ori ...
police criminal database for a murder suspect's brother, they had no limitations when uploading a murder suspect's autosomal DNA to GEDmatch to identify relatives. In 2019, Charles E. Sydnor III, a
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
delegate, sought a bill to prohibit law enforcement from using DNA databases for crime solving, but the bill was not passed. A state representative in Utah introduced a similar bill that would ban genetic genealogy searches by police.


See also

*
Combined DNA Index System The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is the United States national DNA database created and maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. CODIS consists of three levels of information; Local DNA Index Systems (LDIS) where DNA profiles ori ...
*
Family Tree DNA FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database ...
*
GEDCOM FamilySearch GEDCOM, or simply GEDCOM ( , acronym of ''Genealogical Data Communication''), is an open file format and the de facto standard specification for storing genealogical data. It was developed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
* Investigative genetic genealogy


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links

* GEDmatch {{Official website 2010 establishments in Florida Companies based in Palm Beach County, Florida Internet properties established in 2010 American genealogy websites Genetic genealogy companies Lake Worth Beach, Florida Biometric databases American companies established in 2010 2019 mergers and acquisitions