Bonaparte: Application of new software for missing persons program

Abstract

The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), together with SNN at Radboud University Nijmegen, have developed new software for pedigree matching which can handle autosomal, Y chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA profiles. Initially this software, called Bonaparte, has been developed for DNA DVI. Bonaparte has been successfully applied in a real DVI case: the Afriqiyah Airways crash in Tripoli, Libya on 12 May 2010 in which 103 persons perished. The software performed excellently in terms of computational performance, stability and user-friendliness. This showed that Bonaparte is a reliable and time-saving tool which significantly simplifies and enhances a large-scale victim identification process. Bonaparte has been applied in NFIs missing persons program. For this, the software is connected to the NFI's missing persons database (CODIS). Since Bonaparte uses XML as import format, data from any source can be imported. In the new configuration, CODIS data is automatically imported into Bonaparte. Then the software automatically performs a set of direct searches, as well as searches against both partial and full family trees. For the autosomal DNA results, exact likelihood ratios are computed. Finally, match reports can be generated on demand by Bonaparte's customized reporting modules. In this way, an advanced search strategy combined with a modern, efficient work flow is realized in NFI's missing persons program.