GEDmatch PRO
Definition
The law-enforcement tier of GEDmatch, acquired by Verogen in 2020. Operates on an opt-in model; only profiles of users who have explicitly consented are visible in law-enforcement searches.
- Owner
- Verogen, acquired 2019
- User tier
- Law-enforcement tier of GEDmatch
- Access model
- Opt-in, consented profiles only
Common questions
How does the opt-in model of GEDmatch PRO differ from the original GEDmatch database's default policy?+
The original consumer GEDmatch database initially made all uploaded profiles visible to law-enforcement matching by default until a May 2019 policy change required opt-in, and GEDmatch PRO, launched after Verogen's late-2019 acquisition of the site, built that opt-in requirement in from the start, so only users who explicitly agreed appear in law-enforcement search results.
Why does the opt-in restriction matter for the reliability of an investigative genetic genealogy lead generated through GEDmatch PRO?+
Because the searchable pool is limited to consenting users, a case can miss a true relative match entirely if that relative never uploaded or never opted in, which is why genealogists treat a lack of matches as inconclusive rather than as evidence the suspect's family did not test.
Is GEDmatch PRO the same database consumers use for their own ancestry research?+
It draws on an overlapping but separately governed dataset; consumer GEDmatch and GEDmatch PRO have different access rules, with PRO specifically built for authorized law-enforcement use against opted-in profiles.
Related terms
- DOJ Interim Policy 2019
- US Department of Justice Interim Policy on Forensic Genetic Genealogy DNA Analysis (24 September 2019), limiting IGG to violent crimes and unidentified...
- ForenSeq DNA Signature Prep Kit
- Verogen MPS library-preparation kit typing 27 autosomal STRs, 7 X-STRs, 23 Y-STRs, 94 identity SNPs, and 56 ancestry SNPs in a single...
- Identical by Descent (IBD)
- A chromosomal segment shared between two individuals because both inherited it from a common ancestor without an intervening recombination event. The amount...
- Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG)
- A forensic identification technique that uploads a crime-scene DNA profile to a consumer genealogy database, identifies partial matches suggesting distant family relationships,...
- Massively Parallel Sequencing (MPS) / NGS
- High-throughput sequencing technology that generates millions of short reads simultaneously; used in forensics for sequence-level STR typing (Verogen MiSeq FGx, Ion S5)...
- Othram Inc.
- Texas-based forensic genetics company offering the FORCE target-capture SNP profiling service for degraded and low-quantity crime-scene DNA and unidentified-remains casework using IGG.
- Parabon NanoLabs
- A US company that became the primary commercial provider of forensic IGG casework following the Golden State Killer case, offering the Snapshot...
- Precision ID GlobalFiler NGS STR Panel
- Thermo Fisher Scientific MPS library-preparation kit for the Ion S5 platform typing the 20 CODIS core loci and additional markers with sequence-level...