Blocking Gibbs sampling for linkage analysis in large pedigrees with many loops.

We apply the method of "blocking Gibbs" sampling to a problem of great importance and complexity-linkage analysis. Blocking Gibbs sampling combines exact local computations with Gibbs sampling, in a way that complements the strengths of both. The method is able to handle problems with very high complexity, such as linkage analysis in large pedigrees with many loops, a task that no other known method is able to handle. New developments of the method are outlined, and it is applied to a highly complex linkage problem in a human pedigree.