Volunteers identify victims of automobile accidents, homicide, and unusual circumstances and persons who committed suicide under an alias.

Colleen M. Fitzpatrick, a physicist who worked with NASA and the US Department of Defense,[2] was the founder of IdentiFinders, an organization that used Y-chromosomal testing to attempt to identify male killers in unsolved homicides.

In March 2018, the DDP announced it had solved its first case, the identification of the "Buckskin Girl" as Marcia Lenore Sossoman (King) (see below).

The Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office spent countless hours in search of the man's true identity but to no avail.

By March 22, 2018, DDP volunteers had obtained his DNA results and began analyzing through GEDmatch and related genetic genealogy research.

The woman had hazel eyes, was around five feet five inches (165 cm) in height, weighed 112 pounds (51 kg), and had brown hair tied back in a bun.

[27] Joseph Wayne Burnette, a long-term person of interest in the case, confessed to the murder in August 2018, leading him to be charged with her death (and that of another woman, 28-year-old Felisha Pearson).

Strong evidence supported this, as she had keys from an Oklahoma motel, long, dirty nails, insect bites (revealed to actually be impetigo scars post-identification),[30] unshaven legs, and a makeshift sanitary pad.

It was later discovered that police officers from the area had him look at crime scene photos and then confess during interviews, which they would use to gain recognition for solving cold cases.

He had been accused of murdering his common-law wife, Agnes Loveless, on May 16, 1916, but had managed to escape imprisonment on May 18, 1916, by using a sawblade hidden in his shoe to cut the prison bar cells.

The circumstances surrounding Loveless' death are, at present, suspected to be murder due to his torso and limbs being separated from his body, and his head and other arm being missing and nowhere to be found.

[32] On August 9, 1976, a pair of young adults were found on a narrow frontage road between Sumter and Florence, South Carolina.

[36] On October 18, 1983, the bodies of four young men were discovered partially buried in a shallow grave near US 41 in rural Newton County, Indiana, by a pair of mushroom hunters.

Eyler later confessed to his attorney that he had met the two unidentified victims by chance, and that "Brad" had been introduced to him by his alleged accomplice, Robert Little, in mid- or late-May 1983.

The decedent wore distinctive clothing, including a red and black belt inscribed with the word "devil" multiple times.

[46] On November 26, 1995, the skeletal remains of a young man were found by hunters in a wooded area along Turtle Creek in Bradford, Wisconsin, near Clinton.

The man was dressed in a plaid flannel jacket, a black Venom concert T-shirt, boxer underwear with a Bart Simpson design, and gray urban camouflage fatigues.

Other items found with the body were cigarette butts, a Budweiser disposable butane lighter with the caption "Proud to be Your Bud" printed on it, a tube of Carmex lip balm, and a black Aquatech watch.

[48] On June 14, 2022, the Rock County Sheriff's Office announced the identification of the decedent as Carl Junior Isaacs Jr. of Delavan, Wisconsin.

On April 16, 1995, Isaacs escaped from his mother's home in Walworth where he was under house arrest while serving a 5-year prison sentence for the 1991 burglary and vandalism of the Delbrook Golf Course in Delavan.

They were successful and found that the man has ties to the Midwest's Amish and Mennonite communities, Texas, Louisiana, and patches in the Pacific Northwest.

Jane Doe was identified by June 2022 as Alice Lou Williams, a woman who disappeared mysteriously from her recreational cabin near Lake Loma in July 1981.

However, she was sooner identified as Bertha Alicia Holguín Barroterán after relatives in New Mexico found out about the case due to greater media exposure.

[53] The project was involved in the identification of a severed leg found floating in Buena Vista Lake in Kern County, California, on July 28, 2018.

[54] The project was involved in the case of Gwinnett County Jane Doe (2021), but she was identified while still in the "pending" phase as Brittany Michelle Davis, who was reported missing by her family on March 16, 2020.

In March 2022, he was identified as a drifter named Robert James Pearson, who had never been reported missing by his family, using his fingerprint before the sequencing of his DNA was completed.

[59] Press and Fitzpatrick worked with Lawrence Wein, professor of operations, information, and technology at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Mine Su Ertürk, a PhD student, on a paper proposing a new mathematical search method to help genealogists in forensic genealogy investigations.

[64] On December 20, 2022, DNA Doe Project announced a collaboration with Ramapo College of New Jersey and Palisades Interstate Parkway Police.

[69] The project was involved in the case of Jonesport John Doe (2000); however, the lack of close matches on DNA databases couldn't lead to any further investigation.

[72][73] Around early August 2024, Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office and DNA Doe Project had started a collaboration to identify the remaining Cleveland Torso Killer’s unidentified victims.