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I never said it was an exact analogy for what the ills of DNA/genetics would bring, just one of many aspects your average person never thinks of.
Rest assured we have seen government abuse and overreach in many different areas over many years. Never assume it will not happen, as if history has taught us anything, it will happen if allowed to.
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I am not assuming it won't happen, I just don't believe we should halt scientific advancements out of fear that something might happen. Instead, we should take steps to assure it doesn't happen while still moving forward. People now understand that public databases can be used by police - and that doesn't apply just to DNA databases. Maybe they should have been explicitly warned about that in Gedmatch's site policy - personally, I would have thought that is common sense, but I guess some people don't think it. I'm okay with the police using public databases but someone who is not simply shouldn't use Gedmatch.
GEDmatch carries little to no expectation of privacy. Anyone can use your kit number to find your relatives, a breakdown of your ethnicity, find out if your parents were related, or use pretty much any other standard utility on the site.
I don't see how the police would be excluded from the "anyone" in this case. Recall the police can offer someone a drink, then take the glass and extract DNA, or grab fingerprints, that way. This would seem to this non-lawyer as a modern example of the same precedent.
Those of you who are not genealogists may want to start a thread in a forum such as Politics & other Controversies. The Genealogy Forum is mainly dedicated to...genealogy. If fighting and many more uninformed posts about DNA continue, this thread will be closed. Mainly, read and listen to the genealogy experts. Thank you.
I was surprised that there were only about 100 distant relatives that matched and the nearest, genetically speaking, was possibly 3rd cousin. Did I understand that correctly?
Is that what most people are finding? I know that Gedmatch stops at 2000 matches, because those in my immediate family hit that ceiling.
Out of curiosity I checked FTDNA and saw my father had 4,938 matches, of which 476 were identified as 2nd-4th cousins.
I'm thinking if it took the investigators 4 months to work through 100 distant relatives, my family's distant relatives have plenty of time to start packing...
I was surprised that there were only about 100 distant relatives that matched and the nearest, genetically speaking, was possibly 3rd cousin. Did I understand that correctly?
Is that what most people are finding? I know that Gedmatch stops at 2000 matches, because those in my immediate family hit that ceiling.
Out of curiosity I checked FTDNA and saw my father had 4,938 matches, of which 476 were identified as 2nd-4th cousins.
I'm thinking if it took the investigators 4 months to work through 100 distant relatives, my family's distant relatives have plenty of time to start packing...
It sounds like your father was related to the early settlers of the US, most of them were descended from European aristocracy. My husband's mother and father both were descended from Mayflower arrivals. With his DNA on ancestry he gets 4 or 5 matches a week. My family is composed of 20th century immigrants from Scandinavia and Southern France, I'm lucky if Ancestry sends me a 3rd generation match once every few months.
I was surprised that there were only about 100 distant relatives that matched and the nearest, genetically speaking, was possibly 3rd cousin. Did I understand that correctly?
Is that what most people are finding? I know that Gedmatch stops at 2000 matches, because those in my immediate family hit that ceiling.
Out of curiosity I checked FTDNA and saw my father had 4,938 matches, of which 476 were identified as 2nd-4th cousins.
I'm thinking if it took the investigators 4 months to work through 100 distant relatives, my family's distant relatives have plenty of time to start packing...
It’s an apples and oranges comparison. I think most of the uploads to Gedmatch are by serious genealogists. Others who don’t upload are content with the information they already have received from the testing site they’ve used.
For example, excluding my mother, my closest relative on Gedmatch is a distant cousin named Mark. I know exactly how we are related. On Ancestry he is my 78th closest relative. On FTDNA he is my 6th closest relative. On 23andMe he is my 15th closest relative.
In other words, the investigators would probably have had a lot more DNA “hits” if they had had access to one of those other sites, particularly Ancestry. Whether they would have had many more family trees to go along with the increased matches though is questionable. Many of my matches on Ancestry don’t have public trees.
This doesn't bother me. What does bother me is how easy it is to plant DNA evidence. We need to tread carefully here. I'm not against this in theory, or for privacy concerns, but strict oversight will be needed.
If it wasn't common before, it will be now. I am very concerned about privacy issues here.
Why not just ask for search warrants when needing to review the DNA matching services, like for any other evidence? It is just a matter of setting up the procedure.
I am very happy that this reprehensible cretin was caught, mind you, but the method the police used needs to be vetted for privacy concerns.
It’s an apples and oranges comparison. I think most of the uploads to Gedmatch are by serious genealogists. Others who don’t upload are content with the information they already have received from the testing site they’ve used.
For example, excluding my mother, my closest relative on Gedmatch is a distant cousin named Mark. I know exactly how we are related. On Ancestry he is my 78th closest relative. On FTDNA he is my 6th closest relative. On 23andMe he is my 15th closest relative.
In other words, the investigators would probably have had a lot more DNA “hits” if they had had access to one of those other sites, particularly Ancestry. Whether they would have had many more family trees to go along with the increased matches though is questionable. Many of my matches on Ancestry don’t have public trees.
And it is not like you can "see" Mark's DNA. On GEDMATCH, you might get an e-mail address on him, and a family tree if he posted one, and you could know his Y-DNA type, but that's about it...
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