The document is circulated as a PDF file free of charge by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2024/NIST.IR.8503.pdf.
I learned of this May 1 publication from forensic DNA expert Tiffany Roy, one of the co-authors, and I think it might well be--despite the title being focused on forensics--of interest to anyone using genetics for genealogical research. As the introduction states:
"Although this report is written specifically within the lens of forensic autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) DNA analysis, much of the content can be applied to other types of DNA analysis (e.g., mitochondrial DNA [mtDNA], Y-chromosome DNA [Y-DNA], Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy [FIGG], Rapid DNA) and other forensic disciplines."
It isn't a quick read at 436 pages, but much of what we see in recent advances in procedural methods for analysis and evaluation of comparative DNA data for genealogy has come from the forensics side of the equation. This is logical because the necessity to be rigorously accurate and stringently objective is far greater if examining a potential criminal case than it is for general genealogy work.
If for no other reason, I believe the short section titled, "2.4 Cognitive Bias" (with additional detail in section 3.3), is worth the download. Simple pearls of wisdom from section 3.5 include (and I'm paraphrasing a bit to place it genealogical terms):
- Relevant genealogical information should be used in formulating the issues that DNA analysis can provide insight to.
- To be balanced, the analyst should consider at least two mutually exclusive propositions when assessing the value of biological results.
- Analysts should assign the probability of the findings, not the probability of the (alleged) facts.
Portions of the "Forensic DNA Analysis Process Map" are adaptable to general genealogy, and there is solid discussion about applying the statistical concept of likelihood ratios to DNA analysis (something I've mentioned before here on G2G; see section 4.3 of the document in particular), and about quantitative versus qualitative analysis.
A lot of us struggle with how to present genetic genealogy conclusions and, while some of the information is specific to use in forensics, there is some good, cross-platform advice and guidelines in Chapter 5, "Reporting."
There is much more in the new publication, and I don't want to imply individual sections should be cherry-picked for general genealogy purposes. You almost certainly won't dive into this like you would the latest best-selling thriller, but if you have an interest in genetic genealogy there's a lot to browse through.
We have no similar authoritative body working on anything of a kindred scope and depth for the use of DNA in general, ancestral/relationship genealogy, but there are clues and cues we can glean from this publication. A big "thank you" to all of the contributors for the massive amount of collaborative work it must have taken to bring this to print.
