A national database to help identify missing persons and unidentified remains is more than a year away, but families and experts say that DNA is the missing piece of the puzzle that the initiative needs.

Judy Peterson has been a proponent of such a database since her daughter, Lindsey Jill Nicholls, went missing in 1993.

I think the DNA databank is just the missing piece, she said from her home in Sidney, B.C. I believe it will happen, I just cant understand why its taking so long.

Ms. Peterson started a petition in 2003 called Lindseys Law, calling for DNA from missing persons and unidentified remains to be added to the National DNA Data Bank, which was set up in 2000 to help police with their investigations.

Melanie Alixs son Dylan Koshman went missing in Edmonton in October, 2008 and she too has been petitioning the government for such an addition to the data bank.

Id give my life to find my son, she said from her home in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Ms. Alix and her husband gave DNA samples to police in Edmonton after her sons disappearance, but they were not accessible to law enforcement in other provinces because there is no national DNA database for missing persons and unidentified remains.

A new index called the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains would store descriptive information on these cases and allow for them to be compared nationally for the first time when it launches in late 2013, but it wont include DNA.

The federal government has been resistant to amending the National DNA Data Bank to include the thousands of missing persons and hundreds of unidentified bodies across the country. It cites privacy concerns and high costs.

Ray Boughen, Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, said that costs could be lowered if DNA from these cases was voluntarily incorporated into the existing database for convicted offenders and crime scenes.

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Exclusion of DNA in missing persons database draws criticism