Project "PatronYme"

[Noctosphere]

Hello fellow tempers

I just heard about a new investigation method used by police department : Project PatronYme.
It is the very first time I hear about such method and I sadly couldn't find any documentation in english.

In short, in 2000, a woman was murdered at Joncquière, province of Quebec. On the crime scene, they found DNA sample of the murdered (under her nails and other part of her body). The DNA didn't match anyone in the criminal database. However, they used another method in order to pin potential suspect : Project PatronYme.

The way DNA works, when a baby is concieved, the father will give his Y chromosone to the child if it's a boy. Also, in most cases, the child will bear its father's last name.
Using different database of DNA, people working on Project Patronyme somehow managed to associate specific Chromosone Y to specific last name (family name)

In the present case, investigators managed to identify the last name "Grenon", and with that information, they could identify a suspect, Marc-André Grenon, and put him under surveillance to get an actual sample of his DNA, compare it to the one on the crime scene, and there, the match was perfect.

I don't know if any of you heard of such investigation method. The news were talking about it like it was something very new. And as I said, I couldn't find any papers on it in english.
I will try to find something that you guys could read.

 

[Veho]

I know that investigators can search the 23-and-me or Ancestry.com data for partial matches (relatives of the criminal), and then use that info to find the suspect based on other data.

Say they find a DNA sample on the murder scene. There is no direct match in any government database, but there is a close match on Ancestry.com. Now the investigators have a relative (sibling, parent, relative) of the suspect. Then they find all the relatives of that person, and look for ones that live in the area where the crime happened, or visited the area at the time, etc. Once they narrow this down to one or two people, they can take fingerprints and DNA samples to match with the one on the crime scene.

A whole bunch of murders were already solved this way.

This doesn't account for illegitimate children, evil twins, and other edge cases.

 

[Noctosphere]

I know that investigators can search the 23-and-me or Ancestry.com data for partial matches (relatives of the criminal), and then use that info to find the suspect based on other data.

Say they find a DNA sample on the murder scene. There is no direct match in any government database, but there is a close match on Ancestry.com. Now the investigators have a relative (sibling, parent, relative) of the suspect. Then they find all the relatives of that person, and look for ones that live in the area where the crime happened, or visited the area at the time, etc. Once they narrow this down to one or two people, they can take fingerprints and DNA samples to match with the one on the crime scene.

A whole bunch of murders were already solved this way.

This doesn't account for illegitimate children, evil twins, and other edge cases.

yes, they did mention the Ancestry database. They were focusing on the Y chromosone, so they could make a DNA profile, or rather a "chromosone profile", that would be "unique(?)" to each last name. As you said, stuff like illegitimate children are not taken into account here.

But in the present case, they were looking for specific data in the chromosone Y. From what I understood, they only take into account a potential family when the match ratio is over 80/98. In this case, they had two match. One was 80.5/98, the other, the Grenon family, was 94/98.
From that point, I guess they can go with other regular investigation method, such as "was there a man named "Grenon" who knew the victim?". With more regular method, they found Marc-André Grenon, and then managed to get a sample of his DNA, compare it with the one found on the crime scene, and they then could arrest him.

 

[JaapDaniels]

I know that investigators can search the 23-and-me or Ancestry.com data for partial matches (relatives of the criminal), and then use that info to find the suspect based on other data.

Say they find a DNA sample on the murder scene. There is no direct match in any government database, but there is a close match on Ancestry.com. Now the investigators have a relative (sibling, parent, relative) of the suspect. Then they find all the relatives of that person, and look for ones that live in the area where the crime happened, or visited the area at the time, etc. Once they narrow this down to one or two people, they can take fingerprints and DNA samples to match with the one on the crime scene.

A whole bunch of murders were already solved this way.

This doesn't account for illegitimate children, evil twins, and other edge cases.

Now that's the crime stoppers way, criminals use same database to get to your relatives by using your dna to get information on who your relatives must be.
If they can't get right to you, they'll use your relatives to peruade you to do thier bidding.

 

[Veho]

Now that's the crime stoppers way, criminals use same database to get to your relatives by using your dna to get information on who your relatives must be.
If they can't get right to you, they'll use your relatives to peruade you to do thier bidding.

I'm pretty sure there's no need to do complex DNA tests or to buy/steal access to DNA databases to find out who your relatives are.

 

[JaapDaniels]

I'm pretty sure there's no need to do complex DNA tests or to buy/steal access to DNA databases to find out who your relatives are.

i'm sure some people keep that part of thier life hidden (for good reasons)

 

[Veho]

i'm sure some people keep that part of thier life hidden (for good reasons)

People keep... their family... hidden? As in, keep their existence a secret, to the point of changing their name, living far away, and needing DNA tests to prove relation? I think that's just your parents, bro

 

[Noctosphere]

Now that's the crime stoppers way, criminals use same database to get to your relatives by using your dna to get information on who your relatives must be.
If they can't get right to you, they'll use your relatives to peruade you to do thier bidding.

err, I think you are watching too much movies. These types of thing (if you dont do what I want, think about your daughter who goes at this school), does not actually happen the way you may think of.
Or at least, it is a well known fact in Canada, criminal organisation do not attack families. For example, a member of the mafia wants something from some dude who bought them drugs, and now that dude owes them lot of money. Mafia will NOT threaten his family. They have nothing to do with this, so they let them out of this. Why? Because they are innocent. Criminal organisation do not attack innocent who did nothing to them.

Attacking families are something you would rather see from disorganised criminals, which are much more dangerous than criminal organisations. And, as @Veho said, they will not even think about ancestry or such. They will just get someone to follow you everywhere you go, and note who you visit, who you talk to, etc.. And that way, they may threaten your relative.

If they were using this same system (Project PatronYme) to find your relative, guess how difficult it would be if your last name was "Smith" and you were living in USA. They would then need to find out which Smith in your area is a relative to you.
For your information, Smith is the most common name in United States.

This would just be counter-productive for them. So no, this is not a tool they can use