On February 19, 2025, I was contacted by a DNA investigator through Ancestry.com that my mother and I were a DNA matches to an unidentified Jane Doe. The investigator determined our connection through the kits I had uploaded to GEDmatch.
"... we have worked with a couple of matches that match your mother and W that you manage ... RB and DS. RB matches you at 19cm and he matches another kit you manage at 23cms. You and RB share 19cm it says 4th cousins and with W he shares 23cms. On his end it says maternal side, ... an EL you share 111cm with him and RB shares 123cm. Do you have pro tool Ancestry? It shows your shared matches with your match."
On June 18, we connected through a Zoom call, and she told me the heart-breaking story of Vandy Jane Doe. An unidentified woman was found on a rural road near Nashville, Tennessee on September 8, 2018. She was in an advanced state of decomposition but fully dressed in Vanderbilt University clothing -- and that's how she became identified with the name "Vandy Jane Doe".
With advances in DNA, Nashville Police reopened the case. She was exhumed in 2022 to collect DNA for forensic genealogy research. Her DNA indicates that she is 50% African American and 50% Italian. In addition to her ethnicity, she was initially described as 5 ft-5 in tall, 15-25 years old, black hair, and biological female. Her description was revised as 5 ft-9in tall and age 16-35 years old after the police worked with an anthropologist.
Ancestry.com added the enhanced feature Pro Tools in December 2023. It offers several advancements to improving your family tree, including how to better evaluate DNA matches. I started using Pro
Tools mid-2024 -- focusing on one of the features at a time. By the time the DNA investigator contacted me, I had already begun grouping my maternal and paternal DNA matches.
The one match, EL is predicted as a 2nd cousin 1x removed or half 1st cousin 2x removed to me in Ancestry (2% shared DNA: 111cM across 7 segments). He only had six people in his tree. I have built out his tree to three generations and I am meticulously going through each person. And as I looked at the DNA groups of my maternal matches with EL, it appeared that the matches were on my mother's paternal line out of Mississippi.
Vandy Jane Doe has DNA connections to the states of Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee. To date, I don't recognize any of the surnames on the poster that are connected to her.
The most recent poster with information about Vandy Jane Doe shows the 2018 original image that was circulated shortly after Vandy was found. It also has an updated 2025 image as well as an AI version of what she may have looked like. The original photo that was circulated was produced using forensics, because she was unrecognizable due to decomposition.
In the initial investigation, no students, staff, or faculty from Vanderbilt University were missing. Vandy's official cause of death has never been released. She has been featured on Dateline and Facebook. Every time I Google "Vandy Jane Doe" there are more articles and alerts keeping her story in public view.
Everyone has a name. Everyone has familial connections whether they are nurtured or not. Everyone has community connections. It breaks my heart that a once vibrant young woman is unnamed and unidentified in death.
https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/cold-case-spotlight/vandy-jane-doe-tennessee-rcna193129
Feb. 23. 2025
https://nashvillecoldcase.gov/vandy-jane-doe
https://www.facebook.com/dna.fallon/posts/pfbid0EM3qq8PhJ4ZwciZPmgg33xQYgp2upUY7Jj1bePbcELzuzPyR5NNtYcGCJerYWjbtl
