If an adoptee is curious about their biological parents, or the Humboldt County coroner needs help finding next of kin, professional genealogists like can scour available information to piece together a family's history. "If I can get on someone's Facebook ... I can find your entire family tree," says Alyssa Ellis.
A person's digital footprint is just one piece of the puzzle. Public records, DNA, and other proprietary databases can help forensic genealogists with cold cases, finding heirs, or simply helping someone find out where they came from. For Ellis, what started as a hobby has led her to tracking down someone's biological family, working with Tulsa's 1921 Graves Project, and probate attorneys find who they're looking for.
Transcript:
Tom Jackson:
Hi, I'm Tom Jackson, president of Cal Poly Humboldt, with my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Keith Flamer, president of the College of the Redwoods. Good to see you, Keith.
Keith Flamer:
Good to see you, Tom, it’s always wonderful to be with you.
Tom Jackson:
Last time we were chatting, we started talking about our pasts, and that led us to ask the question, where did our ancestors come from?
Keith Flamer:
Yes.
Tom Jackson:
And here today, a special guest, Allyssa Ellis, forensic genealogist here in Humboldt County. Welcome. And thank you for being here.
Allyssa Ellis:
Thank you for having me.
Tom Jackson:
Define genealogy for us. There are many categories and maybe everyone here should hear them all.
Allyssa Ellis:
You have forensic genealogy, which is looking at descendants of a person used a lot in probate, research, adoption research, stuff like that. And then you have regular genealogy, which you go the other direction. You're looking for ancestors. Then your regular genealogy or genetic genealogy, rather, that uses DNA to find people that you maybe wouldn't be able to find.
Keith Flamer:
And so someone would come to you to say, I want to understand my history. And really, is it just that simple?
Allyssa Ellis:
It's that simple to me because I've been doing it for 20 years. I started this hobby very young. I was about ten the first time my family showed me our family tree. And I just became obsessed.
Tom Jackson:
We have these websites, Ancestry.com, things of that sort. How do those work?
Allyssa Ellis:
Ancestry is like a repository for information, so whatever connections they have, you have access to, but then they also have their DNA aspects. Records wise, it's harder to use ancestry for living people. Facebook, huge. If I can get on someone's Facebook, I can find their grandparents, then I can find your entire family tree.
Keith Flamer:
So you said that you can access anyone's digital footprint?
Allyssa Ellis:
As long as it's public. That's important. Some people get nervous, like, what are you finding? Only what you make available online.
Keith Flamer:
And so what type of person would come to you for help?
Allyssa Ellis:
A lot of different organizations. I do private research for a lot of people. Local and all over the country. Adoption case I tend to do a lot of, New York specifically, I've worked probably ten adoption cases from the 1920s, 1930s from New York City. And so locally I've helped with probate cases, with law offices. I helped the coroner with a couple of cases to help find next of kin. I do a lot of volunteer work and that is with cold case organizations and the 1921 Tulsa Graves Project. It's all over the place. Oh, I also there's a company called Keepsake DNA. You can send a wallet and say you have your grandfather's wallet in a box from, you know, 50 years ago. They'll test the DNA on that wallet.
Keith Flamer:
From a wallet?
Allyssa Ellis:
Mm hmm. So they will recommend me to people if they need additional research. It's just a giant mix of people that I work with. I think that's what keeps it interesting.
Keith Flamer:
How does someone get into your line of work?
Allyssa Ellis:
Accidentally.
Keith Flamer:
Talk to us about that.
Allyssa Ellis:
I have always done it as a hobby. I started doing more volunteer adoption research for a group on Facebook called Search Angels. It's usually just, hey, I don't I never knew who my father was or, hey, I was adopted or, you know, something like that. And so I help these people find their biological family. But then what's interesting about my local work, I was on vacation and I looked at the Lost Coast Outpost, and the coroner's office had put out a news release asking for information about an unhoused person trying to find their next of kin. And I was just like, oh, I'm just hanging out at the hotel tonight, like, let's see what I can find. And it took me a few hours and I was confident. I had figured out who this person was and left a message with the coroner's office. He was like, How did you do that? Like, how did you figure that out? And so he gave me a couple more. I did a couple of cases with him, and then he referred me out to a couple of offices locally to help with their probate work. And so it was just kind of like just a random Friday night. And I wanted to see if I could figure out who the newspaper article was talking about. Now we have a monthly zoom with 200 of us all over the world talking about what we're doing.
Keith Flamer:
Is it that large?
Allyssa Ellis:
They believe there's about 400 of us in the cold case realm. A lot of the people that meet monthly, we're doing human remains, identifications and crime scene DNA identifications and stuff like that. And so there's only a small group of people that are really like at that level of the research.
Keith Flamer:
You have a fascinating life.
Allyssa Ellis:
It is very interesting.
Keith Flamer:
Fascinating life.
Allyssa Ellis:
I love it if I don't have a lot of cases going on all by ancestry DNA kits. And I will make a post on Facebook and say, anyone have an adoption somewhere in their family line? I need practice. And one person was very skeptical, he was like, okay, fine, I'll do it, but you're not going to figure it out. I had both his biological parents within 18 hours of that test result coming in. And so after that, he was like, All right, you're good. I'm good. So it really but it depends. I've had cases that I worked. I have one that I'm working currently, that I've been on it for a year and a half.
Tom Jackson:
Now, I should tell you one of my favorite shows had to do with finding lost children or parents. They have these different researchers and then, of course, it's a reality show of sorts. Sometimes there's a death before they find them. Other times there's they find the parent and they reunite. And it's a tear-jerker moment. And it's really nice to see.
Allyssa Ellis:
Sometimes when you do these adoption cases, you find the biological family and they're so excited and everyone has a great outcome. And sometimes you find them and they say, 'please don't ever contact me'. There's a range of emotions because for me, I don't ever talk to biological family. That is for the person that has hired me to do that. It's a very emotional process to find out where you come from and I haven't had any skeletons in my closet, but where people find out that they're, like, distantly related. I have a friend who did a DNA test and her and her husband were seventh cousins. You'd be surprised how connected we all are.
Tom Jackson:
Allyssa, we are so grateful that we found you.
Keith Flamer:
And we didn't have to do a DNA match whatsoever.
Tom Jackson:
Thank you so much for your time today and sharing with us a lot about genealogy and the work that you do.
Allyssa Ellis:
Thank you for having me.
Keith Flamer:
Oh, it's been such a pleasure.
Allyssa Ellis:
I love talking about genealogy.
