A Lock Of Sitting Bull’s Hair Was Tested More Than A Century Later – And The DNA Confirmed A Family Claim
What changed: The family has the objects.
They have physical custody of materials that were taken from their ancestor without authority more than a century ago.
That custody is meaningful — not as a simple restoration of what was taken (nothing can restore what the century of separation cost), but as a recognition of who the objects belong to and who has authority over them.
What changed: The scientific record now includes a peer-reviewed study confirming, in the specific idiom of genetic analysis, a familial relationship that family history and documentary records had established through other means.
That documentation is available in contexts where scientific evidence carries institutional weight.