Workshop: Pedigrees and kinship analysis in forensic genetics • pedsuite

Date: April 28–29, 2026
Where: Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Teachers: Magnus Dehli Vigeland & Thore Egeland

Description

The study of pedigrees and genetic relatedness is central in forensic genetics. The aim of this workshop is to introduce the statistical foundations of relatedness, and explore several forensic applications. In particular we focus on recent user-friendly apps, that make pedigree analysis more accessible to practitioners. These include QuickPed, KLINK and Diviana, which are all available as online tools.

Parts of the course is based on the book Pedigree Analysis in R (Vigeland ’21), which presents the pedsuite R packages underlying the mentioned apps.

We also demonstrate the Familias software, which is widely used for forensic kinship testing and disaster victim identification (DVI).

Each day will alternate between lectures and hands-on exercises. Detailed solutions for all exercises are provided at the end of each day, and discussed as needed.

Learning outcome

After completing the course the participants will know:

Classical concepts of statistical genetics and relatedness analysis
How to create and analyse pedigrees with QuickPed
How to perform kinship testing in Familias and KLINK
How to perform disaster victim identification with Diviana

Prerequisites

All participants should bring a laptop on which they have administrative rights
Recent versions of R and RStudio should be installed.
In addition, you should install a recent version of Familias.

If you run into installation problems, we will help during the workshop, but to save time for everybody, please try to install these in advance.

Schedule

The workshop is run over two days, April 28–29, 2026. The following is a tentative schedule:

Day 1 (Tuesday, April 28) – Relatedness and kinship analysis

08:30–08:45 Registration
08:45–09:00 Introductions
09:00–10:00 Pedigrees and measures of relatedness (MDV)
10:00–11:00 Exercises I. (Software: QuickPed)
11:00–11:30 COFFEE BREAK
11:30–12:30 Forensic kinship testing (TE)
12:30–13:30 Exercises II. (Software: Familias + R)
13:30–15:00 LUNCH
15:00–16:00 Kinship testing with linked markers (MDV)
16:00–17:00 Exercises III. (Software: KLINK)

Day 2 (Wednesday, April 29) – Identification cases

09:00–10:30 Disaster victim identification (TE)
10:30–11:00 COFFEE BREAK
11:00–12:00 Exercises IV. (Software: DIVIANA)
12:00–13:30 Realised relatedness and IBD segments (MDV)
13:30–15:00 LUNCH
15:00–16:00 Exercises V. (Software: ibdsim2)
16:00–17:00 Case study: Identifying a victim of the Marcinelle mining disaster

Solutions to the exercises can be requested by email to magnusdv at gmail dot com.