The technique developed to recover DNA from badly degraded material has implications for repatriation more broadly.

If the method can confirm family relationships between museum-held remains and living descendants, it could be a tool that strengthens repatriation cases for other families and communities.

Participating in the development and validation of such a method had potential benefits beyond the specific LaPointe family case.

A third reason, perhaps the most fundamental, was the family’s sense of Sitting Bull’s own wishes and their responsibility to him.

LaPointe has spoken about the family’s belief that Sitting Bull would have wanted the truth about his family documented and recognized — that he would have supported the effort to establish clearly who his descendants were, particularly in a context where that recognition had practical consequences for how his legacy was treated.