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[Music] i really like to solve puzzles and genealogy kind of is like that it offers
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you this endless stream of blanks to fill in my name is chelsea rustad and in 2013 i
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began my search for my own family history [Music] and it took me down lots of unexpected
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paths along the way in 2015 i saw on ancestry's facebook page they were running a contest and
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two winners would receive an ancestry dna kit they contacted me and said chelsea
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you're one of the winners the ancestry dna kit arrived you just kind of spit in a tube and seal it up
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and then it was on its way did you have any idea just what kind of story your dna would
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tell i really didn't i was a genealogy hobbyist like millions of other people in the united states i
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kind of accidentally fell into it i'm cece moore and i'm an investigative genetic genealogist and that means i use
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dna to try to help law enforcement find violent criminals when the golden state killer suspect was
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identified through investigative genetic genealogy there were many people who said this wasn't a tool that would be
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used commonly in law enforcement and i wanted to prove them wrong and genetic genealogy has exposed a lot of
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secrets that people had hoped would remain secret yes oftentimes it's someone's deepest
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darkest secret all i'm thinking is oh it's it's going to confirm my ethnic background and maybe i'll get to
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connect with some cousins i was excited i was just really optimistic about like maybe it will uncover something cool
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a young canadian couple takes a road trip from vancouver island to seattle in november 1987.
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eighteen-year-old tanya van kylenburg and her twenty-year-old boyfriend jay disappeared during a round trip from the
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skagit county has the first half of this puzzling case in may of 2018 i got a knock on the door
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and it was two investigators from skagit county and i was so confused what are they
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investigating the murder of eighteen-year-old tanya van kylenburg her body was found in a ditch near the
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town the boyfriend jay cook dead too his body found near monroe a few days strangled with some kind of ligature
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they let me know that they are investigating a family member of mine for murder a double homicide from 1987.
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this was a person who was in my family tree did that name appear on any of the suspects list
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no that name had never been across my desk ever without genetic genealogy would we know
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who killed tanya and jay no i know that my dna played a big part of that it's been a learning curve this was all brand
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new it's the web of matches it's putting those puzzle pieces together little by little