Free Republic

The Jane Doe, known only as "Blue Pacheco" by authorities, has now been identified as Patricia Skiple of Colton, Oregon. On June 3, 1993, Skiple's body was found on the side of California state Route 152 in unincorporated Gilroy. She was 45 years old at the time of her death. In 2019, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office partnered with the DNA Doe Project to attempt to identify the body via investigative genetic genealogy. “This case was exceptionally challenging due to recent Norwegian ancestry which resulted in very distant DNA matches on GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA,” said DNA Doe Project team...

New laws in Maryland and Montana are the first in the nation to restrict law enforcement’s use of genetic genealogy, the DNA matching technique that in 2018 identified the Golden State Killer, in an effort to ensure the genetic privacy of the accused and their relatives. Beginning on Oct. 1, investigators working on Maryland cases will need a judge’s signoff before using the method, in which a “profile” of thousands of DNA markers from a crime scene is uploaded to genealogy websites to find relatives of the culprit. The new law, sponsored by Democratic lawmakers, also dictates that the technique...

Kayla Tovo paced next to her parked car, not sure what to expect. "Mom, what are you doing?" her little boy called out the window. "Give me a minute," she answered. A decade ago, Tovo manned a machine gun for the Army in Afghanistan. Yet the meeting she was about to go to, at a park in Huntington Beach, spooked her. On the drive over she'd stopped to buy a yellow rose. A yellow rose means friendship. A yellow rose means starting over. A yellow rose would express three words to someone she'd be meeting for the first time –...

DNA Kits Aim to Link You to the Here and Then By JENNIFER ALSEVER Published: February 5, 2006 THE past comes at a price for Georgia Kinney Bopp. Retired and living in Kailua, Hawaii, Ms. Bopp has spent about $800 on tests to trace her ancestry, using samples of DNA from inside her cheek and from possible relatives. She and her husband, Thomas, even plan vacations around genealogy research, seeking DNA samples from distant cousins. "If we travel, we keep a DNA kit with us, just in case we meet someone who might help identify an ancient ancestor," Ms. Bopp...