4 ms·
It's not really collection that's the big issue... the big issue is that the federal DNA database only stores a very small portion of the DNA so familial search
by hugh4life 8y ago
It's not really collection that's the big issue... the big issue is that the federal DNA database only stores a very small portion of the DNA so familial searches on it are only accurate up to 1st cousins. And there are privacy and disparate impact on minorities(everyone caught thus far with GEDMatch has been white IIRC) complaints with using the federal database for familial searches. With GED Match you can go much deeper(at least to 3rd cousins but IIRC potentially up to 5th) in the family tree than the federal DNA database would allow.
There are about 1 million law enforcement personnel in the US which is about how many samples are in the GEDMatch database... a pretty powerful database could be created just from the samples from law enforcement personnel.