Cece Moore

So GEDmatch was started by two friends of mine, Curtis Rogers and John Olson, back in 2010-11.

And of course, when it started, there was no one in there.

So we had to convince people to download their raw data from one of the other sites.

which at the time was just 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA, and upload to GEDmatch.

And so it was just a small site, kind of a playground for more advanced genetic genealogists.

It was where we could try out new tools.

We could do cross-company comparisons.

So if you tested at 23andMe and I tested at FamilyTreeDNA or later Ancestry, we could both upload there for free and then compare our data looking for those long identical shared segments.

They are not.

So law enforcement has their own database, which is based on a different type of DNA marker than what we use in genealogy.

So they're not comparable.

They've been doing it for about, well, it depends what state and which jurisdiction.

So about 25 years, some started earlier.

I've helped identify two serial killers who were put to death in Texas in 1999.

And neither of them were in the law enforcement database, which seems shocking to me.

But I've since learned that it was kind of hit and miss at first.

You know, it took some time to get it off the ground and get collect those samples from violent criminals.

And so we can't.

Here's what's crazy.

Yeah, we can't.