DNA Databases

NDIS - the National DNA Index System - is one component of CODIS, a database that houses DNA profiles of offenders, suspects, victims, and other non-criminal citizens. In 2019 alone, about 250 offenders were caught in Texas alone thanks to CODIS matches.

GEDmatch is a public online service in which citizens can submit their DNA profile - obtained by companies like 23andMe and Ancestry - for use by genealogists and professional researchers, like adoptees searching for their birth parents. Recently, it has been used by law enforcement to identify relatives and eventually the suspect in cold cases.