FGG Capability · Vendor Governance
As forensic genetic genealogy becomes routine law-enforcement practice, agencies need to prepare for scrutiny of the vendors, records, decisions and investigative work behind an FGG lead.
By Christine Burke · 2026-08-26 · 10 min read
Forensic genetic genealogy has transformed the ability of law enforcement to develop leads in cases that once seemed unsolvable.
But as FGG moves from an emerging investigative technique into routine law enforcement practice, agencies need to consider something beyond whether the technology works:
How will the process withstand scrutiny when the case reaches court?
A recent discovery dispute in the Massachusetts prosecution of Matthew Nilo illustrates why this question matters.
In responding to a defense request for personnel, disciplinary and corrective-action records, the Commonwealth made an important acknowledgment. Although it disputed whether those particular records were within its possession or subject to automatic discovery, it stated that Bode, Gene by Gene and the FBI were working in a capacity as the Commonwealth's agent.
For agencies using private FGG laboratories and genealogy providers, that distinction deserves attention.
The fact that part of an investigation is performed by a private company does not necessarily place that work outside the prosecution team.
And calling information "proprietary" does not necessarily end the discovery inquiry.
Think about what happens in a typical FGG investigation.
An agency may provide biological evidence or a DNA extract to a private laboratory. A SNP profile is developed. That profile may then be searched against an authorized genealogy database.
From there, genealogical investigation begins.
Matches are evaluated. Relationships are estimated. Family trees are constructed. Documentary records are reviewed. Hypotheses are developed and rejected. Individuals may be eliminated. Eventually, one or more investigative candidates may be provided to law enforcement.
That is substantially different from purchasing an off-the-shelf product.
The vendor or genealogist may be performing part of the investigative function itself.
And that distinction can become important in discovery.
Massachusetts recently revised its criminal discovery rules to expressly include within the "prosecution team" forensic analysts, crime laboratory personnel and criminalists who are employed or retained by state or local government and who participate in the investigation or prosecution of the case.
The accompanying guidance goes even further: private laboratories retained by law enforcement to perform analysis for a case can be members of the prosecution team.
That should get the attention of every agency currently outsourcing some or all of its FGG function.
Law enforcement agencies understandably rely upon vendors for specialized expertise.
But outsourcing the work does not necessarily outsource the government's obligations associated with that work.
That creates operational questions agencies should be asking before the first sample is submitted:
These are not merely vendor-management questions.
They are case-integrity questions.
Private forensic companies have legitimate interests in protecting intellectual property, trade secrets and confidential business information.
But agencies should be very careful about relying upon a vendor's promise that particular information is "proprietary" as the agency's discovery strategy.
A court ultimately determines what must be disclosed.
Where legitimate commercial interests exist, courts have tools available to protect them, including protective orders, restricted access, sealing and limitations on dissemination.
That is very different from assuming the material can never be reached by the defense.
An agency therefore needs to know before contracting with a vendor whether the company can comply with a court order without compromising the investigation or placing the agency and prosecutor in an unnecessary discovery fight.
A contract cannot guarantee that a court will agree that something is undiscoverable.
This does not mean law enforcement should stop using FGG.
It means agencies should professionalize it.
FGG has reached the point where agencies should approach it the same way they approach other significant forensic and investigative capabilities.
That means establishing:
Policy.
Who may authorize FGG? Under what circumstances? Which databases and methods are permitted? What approvals are required?
Competency.
Who is qualified to conduct the genealogy? What training establishes competency? How is continuing competency demonstrated?
Documentation.
What constitutes the investigative case file? What must be documented as the genealogy progresses?
Quality assurance.
How are conclusions reviewed? Are important relationship assumptions independently checked? What happens when two genealogists disagree?
Evidence and data management.
Where are SNP files, reports, trees, match information, correspondence and supporting records maintained? How long are they preserved?
Vendor governance.
What does the agency's agreement require regarding preservation, access, testimony, discovery, confidentiality, subcontractors and compliance with court orders?
Court readiness.
Could the investigator, genealogist and prosecutor reconstruct what happened months or years later?
That last question may be the most important.
FGG can involve hundreds of research decisions.
Why was one match considered significant?
Why was another disregarded?
Why was a particular ancestral couple selected?
What evidence established a parent-child relationship?
Why was one branch eliminated?
When did a particular individual become an investigative candidate?
What information was known before that identification, and what was learned afterward?
Those questions can become extremely important when a defense attorney reconstructs the investigation.
A properly implemented FGG program should not depend upon someone's memory to answer them.
The file should tell the story.
Agencies sometimes approach FGG competency primarily as a training question:
Can this investigator build a family tree?
That is no longer enough.
The better question is:
Can this investigator perform FGG in a manner that the agency can later explain, document and defend?
A genealogist may be extraordinarily skilled at identifying an unknown person while still working in a manner poorly suited to a criminal investigation.
Law enforcement requires something more.
The work must exist within an investigative framework that accounts for documentation, preservation, quality assurance, privacy, legal process, discovery and eventual testimony.
That is the difference between simply doing genetic genealogy and developing an institutional forensic genetic genealogy capability.
The worst time to discover that an FGG vendor will not release part of its file is after a defense discovery motion has been filed.
The worst time to determine that research notes were not preserved is during an evidentiary hearing.
The worst time to establish what qualifications an agency requires of an FGG practitioner is while that practitioner's competency is being challenged.
And the worst time to develop an FGG policy is after a court begins asking how the investigation was conducted.
Agencies can avoid many of those problems by building the capability correctly from the beginning.
The next phase of forensic genetic genealogy will not be defined solely by whether agencies can obtain SNP testing or genealogy services.
Those capabilities are increasingly available.
The greater challenge will be demonstrating that FGG has been implemented as a competent, controlled, documented and defensible law enforcement function.
That requires agencies to think beyond the successful identification.
Because eventually someone may ask:
Who performed the work?
Under whose authority?
Using what standards?
What was documented?
What was preserved?
What was disclosed?
And most importantly:
Can you defend the process?
That is the standard agencies should be building toward now.
The Forensic Genetic Genealogy Capability & Competency Program is designed for agencies that want to move beyond simply having access to FGG and develop a structured, sustainable capability.
The program addresses the operational framework surrounding the genealogy itself—including competency, policy, workflow, documentation, quality assurance, case management, vendor oversight and court readiness.
The goal is straightforward:
Build the FGG function correctly before a case forces you to defend how you built it.
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