The majority of clients are children who were orphaned, fostered, or adopted seeking to learn about, contact even reunite with their biological relatives.
Others include parents separated from their biological children; doctors benefiting from family medical histories; attorneys dealing with inheritance or other legal matters; police detectives researching crimes, requesting DNA, or other confidential personal information; historians, genealogists, and social researchers; and other individuals requesting information about ancestral antecedents.
The fact that all living things inherit traits from their parents is information that has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding.
The biological science of genetics, which began with the work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-nineteenth century, seeks to understand the process of inheritance and the physical basis for heredity in our DNA.
The profession's skill set can uncover medical information recorded in death certificates, obituaries, interviews, DNA, genealogy and ancestor websites, and old family letters.