The Landscape Shifts: The Future of Investigative Genetic Genealogy

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Hey, it's Kristen.

We are hard at work behind the scenes

through Alice Sturm's case files and other records.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about,

go listen to the last episode on Judy Lord,

because there was some major news that dropped in that episode.

But while we're sifting through those files,

I want to share something special with you.

Back in November of 2024,

I shared an interview with Karen Binder,

an investigative genetic genealogist

with Ramapo College.

I absolutely loved the feedback that I got on that episode

and it warms my heart that people really connected with Karen.

She is amazing.

But in that episode, we covered the basics

of investigative genetic genealogy,

which is probably the biggest buzzword in true crime right now.

We talked about what it is, what her work entails,

and how she helps to solve cold cases

and restore the names of unidentified people.

Since then, however,

there's been policy shifts at ancestry

that significantly changed the level of access

to genealogists like Karen have to certain records.

These changes could have major impacts on the future of this work.

So what does that mean for people like Karen?

And how could it affect the ability

to solve cold cases moving forward?

My friend Laura Norton shared a recent episode

of the fall line featuring Karen

that covers all the major need to know points

and helps explain what's changed

since my interview in 2024,

because it's a lot.

And if you love this episode,

be sure to check out the fall line.

Laura has an entire catalog of incredible work waiting for you.

So this is everything you need to know

about investigative genetic genealogy in 2026.

I'm Kristen Ceevy,

and this is the fall line on murder she told.

This is a conversation regarding the recent terms of service changes

at ancestry.com,

and discussions of how those changes may have long term effects

for investigative genetic genealogists

and others who participate in the resolution of cold cases.

We recognize that ancestry is a private company

that may change their terms of service at any time.

However, we also want to provide space for this conversation

and the possible ramifications regarding cold cases

in what is still a new field of forensic investigation.

This is the fall line.

One of our goals is to help our audience better understand forensic science

and the pursuit of justice for cold cases.

Over the years, we've discussed investigative genetic genealogy extensively,

from the basics of DNA testing to collaborative work

that goes into building family trees to solve cases

that were once considered impossible to close.

Our audience is already familiar with the basics,

how to upload to Jedmatch,

what sites allow DNA comparisons by law enforcement,

the ongoing discussions regarding privacy,

and the other methods that IGG practitioners use to resolve cases

that aren't DNA.

Family trees, census records, obituaries, yearbooks, news archives,

the list goes on.

We've also briefly discussed the different kinds of genealogy work that comes up,

like paternity and air identification that have nothing to do with violent crime

or unidentified persons.

Recently, practitioners in the field reached out to alert me to a significant development,

changes to ancestry.com's terms and conditions effective August 18, 2025,

that specifically prohibit using ancestry services for law enforcement investigations.

The updated TOS language reads in part,

quote, in exchange for access to the services,

you agree, not to use the services in connection with any law enforcement investigation

or judicial proceeding.

When we started talking to our colleagues about this update, they were concerned.

They said that the practical impact on cold case investigations was going to be immense.

For investigators who relied on ancestry's extensive genealogical records

and family tree building tools, this change represents a major shift in how cases can be approached.

The platform's vast collection of historical documents and collaborative features

have been instrumental in solving cold cases over the past several years.

And it's not just about those records.

It's also about access to other sites that fall under ancestry, like Find a Grave and Newspapers.com.

We reached out to ancestry's media relations for comment on this change in early December of 2025,

and they responded with an official statement, which we will read in full.

Quote, ancestry has a consistent, long-standing position,

prohibiting the use of our services for judicial proceedings,

including law enforcement activities, as part of our commitment to safeguarding all of our user's privacy

as outlined in our law enforcement guidelines.

Ancestry is intended solely for family history research.

Ancestry's terms of service prohibit the use of any part of our platform,

including trees, search tools, proprietary hints, and records collections by law enforcement,

are those acting on its behalf to investigate crimes, except through due process.

In January 2024, we clarified that these policies apply to all ancestry services in our terms and conditions.

And in August 2025, we further clarified that these terms apply to all judicial proceedings,

including law enforcement investigations.

From ancestry standpoint, it seems clear the company's position is that they've always had the same policy regarding access.

Those working with law enforcement that we've spoken with, mostly investigative genetic genealogists,

have told us that they were always very clear that DNA was off limits.

But they felt that records that have been uploaded, like census results, family trees,

and archival news clippings, were available for all genealogical research.

And that because the site has become the main repository for that information,

they will be losing a vital piece in the puzzle of solving cold cases.

We also want to note that when we began working on this story,

there was no media coverage of the issue.

However, on the day I interviewed our colleague, Karen Binder.

The New York Times came out with an article on the subject,

which featured quotes from major names in the field, like C.C. Moore.

To understand what this means for the future of investigative genetic genealogy,

I spoke with Karen Binder, one of the field's earliest practitioners,

and assistant director of the IGG Center, and the director of the IGG Certificate Program at Remapo College.

Karen has been working in the space since 2018,

and she's watched the landscape of all from the beginning,

making her uniquely positioned, discuss both the immediate implications of this change,

and what it might mean for the field going forward.

She is the first person that I personally spoke to when I heard about these changes.

So thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here,

and I just want to say up front that I'm here as an individual,

as Karen Binder, investigative genetic genealogist,

and not as a representative of any of the places that I work for.

And I think we also kind of need to say where we are in time, specifically,

because this is going to come out a little later.

But what is today Karen and what happened today,

and what's going on with us?

Sure.

Today is December 7th, 2025,

and today we are prepping your episode for January,

but an important thing happened today,

which is that a New York Times article came out about this exact policy,

and my workplace was involved in that article,

and mentioned in that article,

but that just happened today.

And really, you were the first one that had agreed to talk to me about this on the record,

and so I'm really excited to be speaking with you.

So let's talk about the timeline.

When did these new restrictions first appear in Ancestry's Terms of Service,

and then when did the enforcement begin?

Let's understand what they are, how they affect you,

and when they really came into enforcement.

The biggest change to Ancestry's Terms of Service

that impacted the field of investigative genetic genealogy

happened in August of 2025.

So prior to August of 2025,

there was some language about law enforcement

and about judicial proceedings in Ancestry's Terms of Service,

but those clauses were very broad,

and it seemed to indicate that they were in the DNA section

of the Terms of Service.

So what was added was this statement in connection

with any law enforcement investigation or judicial proceeding

that specified use of the site.

So if you use the Ancestry site, Ancestry.com,

or the other smaller companies that they own like newspapers.com

and find a grave,

that would be violating the Terms of Service of Ancestry.

So that was the big change that happened again in August of 2025,

so very, very recently.

Enforcement began.

I can't say for sure, except for my firsthand knowledge,

I know that it has been enforced to at least one organization

in November of 2025.

And I have heard through the grapevine

that it has been enforced to several organizations.

I think first statement, I kind of have to make to our listeners,

and we've said this before,

but I think I need to reinforce that to my knowledge,

and all of the years I've been aware of investigative genealogy.

We've all been very clear the DNA was not available for use.

So it's been use of records,

it's been use of public family trees,

it's been use of public census data that was uploaded.

All the things that I also use for my research, correct?

Correct.

So that was what y'all were using.

People can go back and listen to older episodes of the fall line

where we're introducing the different databases that can be used

like Jedmatch and Family Tree DNA and DNA Justice.

Ancestry DNA is not something that we can use

in investigative genetic genealogy and has never been.

So we're talking about just the public records section of the site.

And I just wanted to make that very clear

because people who may be newer might be hearing this and going,

well, you shouldn't be using DNA in the first place.

Ancestry DNA is not an opt-in database.

So it would be public records.

And I also want to stress that because some of the public records

that are available on Ancestry smaller sites are public records

that have been uploaded by genealogists.

Am I correct there?

Absolutely.

I'm a find-a-grave volunteer and I have been for years.

Find-a-grave is a user-sourced website.

So find-a-grave before it was even owned by Ancestry,

it has been a site where, you know,

you can visit your local cemetery and take photographs of the graves

and transcribe the texts that's on them,

try to figure out the relationships of the different people

that are buried in a cemetery near you.

And so volunteers upload all of that information to the site

and then it can be seen by other people.

So now in IGG,

some of the records that I have actually uploaded myself

to find a grave,

I can no longer access as part of my work.

So to me, it seems shocking that I wouldn't be able to use

the very data that I added to the site

for the purposes of being able to share it with the public.

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Before the break, we began discussing enforcement of TOS changes.

But Karen told me that for professionals,

carefully reading and abiding by terms of service

is something that they must stay abreast of

and follow to the letter

because non-compliance can affect a cold case.

But Karen told me that for professionals,

carefully reading and abiding by terms of service

is something that they must stay abreast of

because non-compliance can affect a cold case.

That meant the sudden cessation of work

that had already been underway.

For an investigative genetic genealogist

to be in compliance with terms of service of ancestry.com,

they shouldn't be using it at all

because it says it cannot be used

with any law enforcement investigation or judicial proceeding.

So just using it, you know,

that would already be against the terms of service.

So for an IGG practitioner to adhere to terms of service

of the websites that they use, they can't use it anyway.

Ancestry is also enforcing this to my knowledge

by removing accounts that they find to be in violation

of this policy.

So users could actually lose access to their account

and lose the account entirely

if they are known to be violating this policy

and ancestry.com chooses to enforce it.

Talk about being in violation of this policy.

The quote that I have is in connection

with any law enforcement investigation

or judicial proceeding.

And that's what you mentioned as well before.

How broad is this language in practice?

It is extremely broad

because any law enforcement investigation

or judicial proceeding covers a lot of stuff

that is not investigative genetic genealogy.

I'm one of the authors for the book,

Forensic Genealogy Theory in Practice.

And while I contributed to a chapter about IGG,

there were lots of other chapters

about things like air hunting, oil and mineral rights.

Immigration.

So, you know, people that need to prove in judicial proceeding

that they are of descent from a specific country

so that they can obtain a visa or a passport for another country.

So there's lots and lots of judicial proceedings

that are not IGG and ancestry.com has been used for years

and those types of proceedings.

Another is paternity.

There have been people that entered ancestry.com DNA test results

in the court of law

as part of their judicial proceeding

to order further DNA testing.

And so, all of those things

in my understanding of the current terms of service

would be violations of the terms of service.

And I mean, another big one is unidentified human remains.

Even after reading this new change in the terms of service,

I thought my interpretation of it

was that unidentified human remains

where the cases being managed by a medical examiner or corner

would still be fair game to research using ancestry.com

because it's not law enforcement that is investigating the case.

But it seems that this is also believed to be a violation

of the terms of service

per ancestry.com's interpretation of it.

So that's another thing that will be impacted by this change.

So any medical legal professional,

including cases that are with forensic anthropologists as well,

correct.

And beyond DNA databases,

these restrictions are also going to affect,

like you mentioned, access to historical records,

newspapers, so newspapers.com.

And I think because people think so much about DNA,

they don't realize how crucial those other records

are to your work,

although it's something we've talked about before.

How often are you using other records to solve cases

that have nothing to do with DNA?

Oh, every, every single case.

The DNA is just where we start.

So we use the Jed match and family tree DNA

and DNA justice databases to get the list of genetic relatives

to the person that we're trying to identify.

And then once we see that list of genetic relatives,

our job is to just build their family trees.

And so all of that family tree building comes from things like census records,

public records that are birth and death index records.

Find a grave, newspapers.com, obituaries that we find online.

All of that tree building stuff,

the actual genealogy comes from these public records.

And so without them, it's crippling.

We can do it with other websites.

But ancestry.com made it so much faster.

And their newspapers.com site has a lot more newspapers

than other newspaper sites do.

Find a grave certainly is the most comprehensive database

of grave sites and transcription of what is on grave markers.

And it also contains obituaries.

There's just a huge amount of information contained on all of those sites

and having no access to it is really crippling for IgG work.

So I know you just mentioned cases involving unidentified human remains.

It's something we talk about a lot on the show

and how hard it can be to get someone identified.

So with these new changes to terms of service,

can you walk me through how these new restrictions affect active

unidentified remains cases without compromising any ongoing investigations?

Absolutely.

This should be easy because I've been really going through it the last few weeks.

The first piece is the actual tree building.

So when you're building a family tree for an individual on ancestry.com,

it will source records for you without you really having to search.

Of course, if you're a good genealogist,

you're going to vet those records and make sure that the records it's feeding you

are accurate to the person whose tree you're building.

But it's very good.

Like its algorithms are very intelligent at searching for the records

that you need to perform genealogy research.

So building the trees is the first part.

Now without use of ancestry.com's site,

when we are building family trees for the genetic relatives of a genre, a Jane Doe,

we don't get those records automatically provided to us as we're tree building.

So this creates an extra step of searching individually for records.

It doesn't sound like a lot and it's really not difficult to search for records.

But it is less efficient than tree building and ancestry.com's site because you're using,

you know, you're kind of flipping back and forth between tabs tree building in one platform

and then searching on perhaps, you know, family search

or some other site in order to find genealogy records.

One example of that is obituaries.

A lot of times obituaries list every member of a family.

And so they're extremely useful for finding multiple generations of a family tree

and just one record.

So if I'm reading grandma's obituary,

she's potentially going to name all of her kids and all of her grandkids.

And that makes it easy for me to build three generations of a family tree right there.

But without having access to newspapers.com,

that really limits the searching for obituaries.

And so this affects both the ascendancy research,

which is where we're building the family trees of genetic relatives of an unidentified remains case.

And also the descendancy research.

So that's where we're trying to find the unidentified person in the genealogy records of their family.

So once we've sort of narrowed in on a family,

and we're trying to count all of the different members of this family

and find out who might be our John Doe or our Jane Doe,

we're looking for those family records to really fill in that family tree.

Things like yearbooks, things like obituaries, things like census records

that name all the individuals of the family.

And a lot of those records are more readily accessible on ancestry.com.

In terms of ongoing investigations,

have you seen some that have been slowed down or stopped because of these restrictions?

Very much so.

As I mentioned, it's not that the work can't be done.

It can be done.

We still have a lot of genealogy websites that we can use that do not prohibit searching for IgG practitioners.

But it's just much less efficient and much slower.

And so we're trying to do everything we can to make it as efficient as possible.

I've been involved in some new software that's being created to help with the tree building aspect of it.

And so there has been a lot of slowness to the research now.

That wasn't a problem when ancestry.com was available.

So many newspapers have an agreement with newspapers.com to have their newspapers digitized there.

They don't then maintain their own base or separate base.

And it can become much more difficult to try and get that information.

You have to try and get microfiche, try and get it sent to a library.

It's much more difficult, as much more arduous than people might think.

Exactly.

Bless the librarians.

I'll just say that.

I know some librarians listen to this podcast.

Bless you.

Because I feel like we're using library resources more than we used to in the past.

Which is, you know, it's excellent that we have that ability to do that.

But like you mentioned, it does make it less efficient when there's already supposed to be one sort of central repository for everything.

You know, one, this kind of like a silly story.

But back when I was a teenager, that's when I started doing genealogy.

And I was using all of these different websites online to do genealogy.

And then I took a break for a few years when my kids were really little.

And then I came back to it.

And when I came back to it, I like typed in some of those same old websites that I used to use.

One of them was called rootsweb.com.

And like I remember going to these different websites.

And then it would redirect me to ancestry.com because they had all been absorbed by a conglomerate.

So, you know, ancestry does have a lot of resources.

And there's a lot of things that are exclusively accessible on ancestry.com.

Or made very, very difficult to access if ancestry.com is not used to access them.

Karen's concern is also for cases where TOS just might not be followed,

which could ultimately affect their outcomes.

I do imagine that there will be some agencies and some practitioners who choose to violate the terms of service.

And there are also going to be some who are unaware of the change in terms of service.

I mean, just for the listeners to like ask themselves a question.

If you get a message from Instagram that says we've updated our terms of use,

please read it in order to keep using Instagram.

And you just saw that as you're like logging into Instagram.

I would say probably 99% of us do not read it.

And so I imagine that's been kind of the same thing with ancestry.com terms of service.

There's probably some people that are unaware of this change.

I mean, there have been agencies that are publicly okay with violating terms of service

for size. We've seen that in some cases that have gone through the court system publicly.

And it was well known that there were terms of service violated for things like my heritage DNA services.

Not everyone who was publicly commented on the terms of service change is concerned.

Some have pointed out that ancestry has always had some sort of policy in this thing.

And others have pointed out that protecting privacy is a concern that has been at the forefront of any discussion

involving IGG since its inception.

So I ask Karen about this.

And why this update feels different.

The main thing that is the difference was the clause specifically pertaining to law enforcement.

So the piece that says law enforcement investigations.

So that's the first thing.

The other thing is use of the site versus use of the DNA services.

So there have been multiple changes over the years to the terms of service of ancestry.com.

And so those are the two things that were changed that made this very, very specific.

So that the policy is extremely clear that they do not wish for IGG practitioners to be using ancestry.com at all.

So that's how I would respond to it.

I think legal language is often left open to interpretation.

And so you could have two different legal scholars look at the same terms of service and interpret it differently.

But the way it's written now, there's no room for interpretation to think like, oh, it's okay for IGG practitioners to use this for violent crime cases.

There are some users of ancestry.com and some genealogists in general that think that this policy will lead to greater oversight of investigative genetic genealogy.

Because rather than accessing through ancestry.com, which is a website that there will be some sort of record of every genealogy record that we request.

So for example, if I talk to a library, now there's a record that I talk to a library to get a specific genealogy record.

So if that's the wish, I just want to say that that's really not true.

Because for, you know, by and large, as an IGG practitioner, I can still access the same things that I got from ancestry.com through some other website.

So family searches a website that has lots of genealogy records.

I can Google for obituaries and there are websites that lists obituaries.

There are other newspaper sites besides newspapers.com.

It is less efficient, but I can still often get the records that we need.

And there's still no oversight of it.

So there's no record that I'm searching for all of these different things.

It's just as if I was using ancestry.com.

And then besides that, I would argue that it might even create less transparency and oversight.

Because it encourages IGG practitioners that want to continue using ancestry.com in violation of the terms of service.

Now will be more secretive about having an account that they use for ancestry.com.

So I really think that people will not get their wish.

And in fact, it will discourage being transparent and open about what sites were using to search for records.

And that's interesting.

Because if we're looking at the field and structure in the field and looking at organization of the field,

that's something y'all have been working on now for several years, right?

Absolutely.

We started out as just like a Ragtag gang of genetic genealogy that wanted to solve some cold cases.

And we were pioneered by amazing women who started doing this and very quickly moved to legitimize the field.

And so we're working through all of that.

We're having some big growing pains where we're building the structure of how we hold ourselves and one another accountable for the work that we do.

We're watching cases move through the court system.

And you know, the field is still really new.

It's still only seven years old of applying snip testing to these types of cases and then using genealogy to solve them.

And so this is just another hiccup and growing pain as we're legitimizing.

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A lot of what's gathered on the website and has been really convenient in my research

is what is essentially public information,

although it often isn't readily accessible without some effort on the part of researchers.

That's why I found the website so valuable in my own work,

whether I'm using it for a census records,

or to track down information via obituaries.

That's something that came up in my conversation with Karen.

You know, ancestry.com can make agreements with states and counties

to digitize and host their public records.

And the benefit for those municipalities or states

is that now their records are getting digitized,

which is great, and they're being made available to the public, which is great.

And the benefit for ancestry is now they have a collection of records that no one else has.

And then the drawback for IGG practitioners is now those records have been made public

for everyone except for IGG practitioners or people that are involved in judicial proceedings.

So now there is exclusive access.

If I were to call that state or that county,

don't you think their response to me would be,

oh yes, yeah, we have our records digitized on ancestry.com.

So I don't need to scan it for you, you know, I feel like it's putting an unnecessary blockade

between individuals and public records that is specific to a group of people.

With that said, ancestry.com is a private company and they can do that.

It's perfectly legal.

It's not a violation of free speech or anything like that.

So it is legal for them to do that.

It's just certainly going to make our work difficult.

And it's upsetting because those are public records.

And I think what we also have to think about here are we talk a lot about unidentified human remains.

But what we're really talking about are missing people.

And when we're talking about missing people, we're also talking about families

who have been searching for a loved one for years, decades at some point.

So what does this potentially mean for the families of unidentified victims as well?

So for one thing, as you said, you know, missing people and unidentified remains, they are, they're paired.

Unidentified remains cases are the answers to missing people cases.

A really interesting aspect of this is that you could be researching a missing person for the fall line or for any of the projects that you work on.

And I could be trying to unknowingly find that missing person because I have a genre, a Jane Doe case that I'm working on trying to identify them.

And in this context, you would be allowed to perform that research on ancestry.com and look for genealogy documents related to this person.

And I would not because my work would be part of identifying human remains and years would be research of a missing person.

So I'm questioning really like where is the line ancestry.com just came out themselves with a podcast about unclaimed remains.

And so they're using ancestry.com records to find living relatives of some unclaimed remains from a hospital.

And so that is apparently permissible for the new terms of service while unidentified remains, it's not permissible.

So to me, it's very confusing to try to interpret the meaning of the terms of service given the different nature of research that could be done, like really looking at the same same exact documents for two different purposes and it's allowed or not allowed.

So I guess that's my feeling on it is that it's unnecessarily confusing and prohibitive and will slow the answers for families that are waiting for their loved ones and missing them.

One thing that Karen and I discussed was the broader scope of work done in the field.

For instance, I do some volunteer work with law enforcement on cases where unidentified human remains have been lost and the evidence has been lost or destroyed as well.

So the case files, they are the only chance of identifying these John and Jane Does.

I've used various research sites for this work, which raises the question, what exactly does fall under the new terms of service?

I mean, one thing that I'm thinking of just right now with cases that are frequently researched by that, you know, like you said where the remains were lost,

I've specifically seen people using the site find a grave to try to figure out the burial plots and where a missing remains would be potentially buried by comparing it to photos contemporary to the time that a John or Jane Doe homicide victim was was buried there.

And so that would be potentially a prohibited use, I would think because you're looking at a law enforcement investigation, you're trying to advance a law enforcement investigation by using photographs from find a grave and then potentially also from newspapers.com if you're looking at the contemporary articles.

So this is where I would be really unsure where the line is investigating as a volunteer for law enforcement, I would think that that would be a no per the terms of service because of how specific that phrases in the terms of service.

But then researching the same case as a journalist would be okay because then you're not acting on behalf of law enforcement.

But that's just my interpretation and I should say I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a lawyer.

What alternatives exist for IGG practitioners now that these resources are being restricted what databases and record collections are you using what are you turning to what are you making.

Well, we're using a variety of different sources as I mentioned, I really do think librarians out there because a lot of newspapers are that are not any longer accessible to us through newspapers.com are accessible through various libraries.

And so I put in a lot of library requests lately and they are always quickly met by friendly librarians. So thanks again to the librarians out there helping out with this research, even if they don't know that they're helping out with this research.

Another thing is the tree building itself. So I mentioned how tree building is more complicated when not done on ancestry just because the records aren't handed to you really have to go in and find them.

Which that part is fine but ancestry.com really did have the most robust tree building software the user interface was wonderful.

And so I'm working with a developer to assist with a new tree building software that I think will have a nice user interface that will make it more friendly for IGG tree building.

But that said, you know, it's still not going to be ancestry.com. I have to say ancestry.com is stands alone as being one of the most incredible genealogy resources out there.

So on that note, kind of a two part question, what has been the general reaction from practitioners and how is this affecting the training of new practitioners as I know that's a big part of your work.

This change came about during the semester. And so I think I told you you were like my first text that I sent out about it because I took me like a good two weeks to come up for air after the policy change.

So, you know, the response from IGG practitioners has overwhelmingly been just upset IGG practitioners are scrambling to find alternatives for things like tree building.

A lot of collaboration is happening to share different websites that we can use and review the terms of service for all the other websites so that we know what is safe and unsafe to use and be able to find the records that we need.

So I think that there has been some community building and collaboration amongst IGG practitioners law enforcement are understandably not very happy about this restriction.

I've known some law enforcement agencies that feel that this feels discriminatory to them. They feel like it's an upsetting change for that reason and feel unsupported that law enforcement is not supported.

And so I don't want to be like spicy about about this or anything like that, but I can understand why there are so many people that are really upset about this because we were really making an impact solving violent crimes and giving answers to victims of violent crime to their families restoring the names of unidentified people over turning wrongful convictions.

There was so much incredible momentum and all of those areas and it just kind of felt like a kick in the shins, you know, and so that's been the reaction that I've seen.

I've also seen some fear about speaking out about this because I think that people are worried about losing the hard work that they have created using ancestry.com and I think people are just afraid to speak up because of some of the criticisms that they've received.

And I do want to make it clear I mean ancestry is a private company and they can do what they want and we understand that right.

Absolutely they absolutely can do what they want they can change their terms of service as they please and we understand that and ultimately even if we don't like it we respect it.

But I think you also have the freedom to express the ancestry's leadership concerns that you have and I think it's also fair for you to express what you want their leadership to understand about the potential impact of these restrictions.

If I were speaking directly to ancestry comms leadership I would ask them to think about the unidentified people even very young victims of violent crime who were unidentified john and Jane dose and how their families would still be waiting for them.

If not for the records that were available at ancestry.com prior to this terms of service change.

I would also ask them to think about people that are wrongfully convicted who have now been exonerated through investigative genetic genealogy and if not for records available in ancestry.com they could still be in prison today.

I'd also ask them to think about victims of violent crime if you have been a human in the United States you probably known somebody that was a victim of violent crime and perhaps there is DNA that could solve their case now.

Would you want that person to go without justice and without answers because of a lack of available genealogy records and so that's really what's at the heart of all of this.

We're not asking for access to people's DNA through the ancestry.com database we're asking for public records to build family trees so that's the appeal that I would make.

One of the things I've seen happen in what's going to very soon be eight years is the incredible adaptability of this field.

No matter what's been thrown at y'all and I've seen quite a few things thrown at y'all in this very short period of time we started around the same time.

So if this restriction remains in place what's next.

As you said we're a resilient bunch I don't like it but we are.

I would love to just you know chill out and like put it in fifth gear for a little while but I do think that we will adapt will use different genealogy resources.

I was actually thinking like what if there was a site where we could request a specific genealogy record and then somebody fulfills that request like a librarian but like more open source than that.

And so then you know that could be that could be something that comes up in the future aside from from new tree building software.

So I do think that we will adapt with that said I do wonder I mean for me personally ancestry dot com was my favorite site for like the past 20 years it was like number one on my bookmarks it was a site that I visited so frequently.

And I have such a sour taste in my mouth now when I think about the site because.

Like it's hurting families to restrict IGG practitioners access knowing what I know about how IGG positively impacts families that are victims of violent crime and those that are unidentified so.

I think of the restrictions remain in place IGG will continue and press on but we're losing such an important resource.

So Jedmatch dot com kind of have this problem a few years ago and their response to it was to create a specific site for law enforcement increase the transparency of their operations showing that there is law enforcement database access and creating a specialized portal of entry for law enforcement.

I would love it if ancestry dot com did something like that being more transparent with users about what it's being used for and you know perhaps create a special law enforcement portal so that you can keep track of records access from law enforcement keep track of how many what are the numbers of law enforcement agents that are registering for the site or IGG practitioners in general using the site.

So in order to do research for this conversation I really had just been a lot of time on social media because until this article came out today the one that I'm really looking forward to reading as soon as I get out of this recording closet.

There has been nothing written about this except between our colleagues and investigative genealogy but you've been writing really passionately about this and something that you have said a few times really stuck with me.

And it was that the dead cannot speak and we are the only voice and you're speaking of course of unidentified victims who are still waiting to be identified and reunited with their identities and thus their families.

And I would love for you to elaborate a little bit on what that means in terms of new restriction but also I think it's a little bit of a call to action to so I'd love for you to speak about what that means to you right now and also perhaps what our audience can do absolutely.

As you know and as you've covered on your podcasts identifying human remains as a humanitarian effort by restoring the names of the unidentified we are able to return them to their families and make those families whole again to the best of our ability and so there's really if we are not pushing for that there's nobody else to do it we have to do it.

And so that's what I'm pushing for my actions in the past few weeks since the ancestry terms of service change have been a media push just like i'm doing right now trying to get in touch with as much media as possible to get people aware of what's going on in our community and how our our work is being slowed by this policy change.

Additionally, I think that people if they really want to take action so the audience here if you're willing to cancel your ancestry.com account and tell ancestry why you're doing it that could make a big difference the same way that we vote with our dollars for other causes you can with this as well.

Additionally, your state probably has public records that have been digitized and hosted by ancestry.com and you can write to your legislators and get in touch and let them know what's going on that a specific subset of population that is working on unidentified remains cases and violent crime cases and wrong quote convictions are being restricted from accessing those public records through ancestry.com.

So if you use your voice to speak up for the dead that can really make an impact and so I hope that a few people even if just a few people from better listening to this take action it could make a difference.

These changes are still new and we aren't sure what they will mean for IGG and identification but you can follow Karen on social media to see how practitioners are responding and you can as she said get in touch with your legislators.

Her specific ask is as follows quote write to the legislators that represent your region and your state's government and your state in the federal government and let them know about the impact on this policy to unresolved cases of violent crime and unidentified human remains and ask them to carefully consider their agreements with ancestry.com for hosting digitized public records sharing the New York Times article is one way to connect with legislators and to help them understand the issue.

Please emphasize that this is about public record access and not DNA and quote if you'd like to learn more you can find links to Karen socials and our show notes.

Thanks for listening and we'll be following to provide you with updates on our social media as well and we'll provide you a link to that New York Times article that we mentioned as well.

We'll be back in February with season 25 of the fall line where we'll be covering cases from New Mexico Alabama and Florida and working with families facing long term missing persons cases and cold case homicide investigations.

If you know of a case that should be covered on the fall line there's a link to our case of mission form in the show notes and as we said thanks for listening.

The fall line is an independent podcast and we appreciate listener support.

It allows us to do research, tame folias, pair content advisors and support and donate to the causes we care about.

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My book, Play Them Dress, is out everywhere. Find out more of the link in our show notes.

The fall line is written, hosted and researched by Lauren Orden, interviews by Brooke Hargrove, engineered and scored by Southern Gothic media and Rachel Boyd, content advisement by Vic Kennedy and Brandy C Williams.

Special thanks to Liz Libka.

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