U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

FamLink - A User Friendly Software for Linkage Calculations in Family Genetics

NCJ Number
240070
Journal
Forensic Science International: Genetics Volume: 6 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2012 Pages: 616-620
Author(s)
Daniel Kling; Thore Egeland; Andreas O. Tillmar
Date Published
September 2012
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This article presents a new software, FamLink that can perform statistical calculations based on pedigree structures and account for linkage between pairs of markers.
Abstract
The present number of STR loci adopted in relationship testing is chiefly limited to unlinked markers, in most cases residing on different chromosomes. In order to solve more complex cases of relatedness, e.g. deficient paternities and disputed sibships, the number of core loci can be extended. The inclusion of multiple loci on the same chromosome will, however, increase the risk of possible linkage between markers. The authors presented a new software, FamLink, freely available from http://www.FamLink.se, that can perform statistical calculations based on pedigree structures and account for linkage between pairs of markers. In addition, FamLink can simulate genotype data in order to study the effect of accounting for linkage or not. The authors demonstrated the importance of taking linkage properly into account using examples and real cases. (Published Abstract)