For example, "Julie Doe" found in Florida -- they have found matches to family in VA, OH, KY, GA and FL, but too distant (yet) to say more than that her ancestors 200 years ago were in those states. It took several attempts to get a good enough profile from areas in skeletal remains that keep some nuclear DNA to even create a GEDMatch upload.
Plus GEDMatch retroactively removed older profiles from being LE-accessible -- good for privacy considering they haven't codified federally that consumer-collected DNA (or even exclusionary samples from rape kits, theoretically only provided to catch their rapist) should only be used for identification of human remains/live victims of abductions, murder, and rape.... but bad if someone would have been okay w/ that searching but is now deceased so can't add the flag to allow LE use, or just hasn't logged in since they made the change.
Everyone must weigh the risks against the benefits if they wish to contribute their genome for identification of decedents. There's a project right now attempting to identify remains from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre -- but identifying dead relatives from 100 years ago vs protecting living relatives from getting arrested for property crimes? That's not something I can tell people to do with the current state of the law regarding DNA.
I fully support DNA for the identification of human remains -- but until they resolve privacy issues, I can't tell anybody to get any commercial DNA test at all (let alone uploading to GEDMatch and flagging that LE can search it) unless they have strong personal reasons for wanting their DNA in the system.
I've known people who learned they had fully adult children they never knew about, and submitted my own for confirmation that my half-aunt *had* found the right person as her biological father (she was pretty sure even before she submitted and it showed matches with more distant relatives, but my father was born from the only marriage he entered under his correct name -- he'd already started reversing his first and middle when he met her mother and entered into at least one bigamous marriage). My mother was scared she'd learn that SHE had siblings, so had been hesitant to test -- and I agreed to wait until she was ready. She never was, so I submitted mine for my aunt after she passed.
And when I felt compelled to contact a living person who would be the confirmatory test for my paternal grandmother's father (she was adopted), I paid for her kit and said she didn't have to use it, she could always give it away or sell it to someone else. We had shared pictures and again were practically certain we were related even w/o testing. A factor in her willingness to test was the fact her mother had already passed, as well -- knowing she'd been raised in the same town as her half-sister and never knew it would have blown her mind. Another factor was that it was clear my grandmother was conceived when he was *unmarried* -- this relative was very close to him growing up, and it would have hurt her image of him to imagine him cheating.
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