The Family History AI Show EP41: MyHeritage Announces Scribe AI, Dave Vance Talks AI at FamilyTreeDNA, Full Text Search at Fold3, Wikipedia's AI Ban
Apr 6, 2026
David Vance, General Manager at FamilyTreeDNA and a leader in genetic genealogy, talks about next-generation sequencing that yields vastly more genomic data than older tests. He discusses how AI can manage massive DNA datasets, improve triangulation and matching, and the balance between agentic and generative AI in genealogy.
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NGS Gives About 400x More Genealogical Data
- Next-generation sequencing (NGS) tests collect far more genome data than SNP microarrays, roughly 9–10% vs 0.02% of the genome.
- David Vance says that equates to about 400× more data, enabling much higher-resolution matching and analysis.
Richer Data Could Resolve Triangulation Order
- With richer NGS data, triangulated groups could be ordered and mapped to specific common ancestors rather than just grouped.
- Better resolution of shared mutations may separate identical-by-descent from identical-by-chance and push analysis beyond current generation limits.
Agentic AI Will Drive Behind‑The‑Scenes DNA Analysis
- AI will likely be used behind the scenes (predictive/agentic AI) to analyze massive NGS datasets rather than only for conversational tasks.
- David Vance expects AI to produce repeatable conclusions from millions of data points faster than humans can.