Law, ethics, and community deliberation must determine what to do about that finding.

The history of DNA testing in other contexts — the identification of bodies from conflict and disaster, the resolution of questions about historical figures’ remains — shows both the power of the technology and its limits.

DNA can identify.

It cannot adjudicate.

It can answer factual questions.

It cannot resolve the moral and political questions that follow from those answers.

What it can do is change the conversation from one based on legend and disputed documents to one based on material evidence.

In a situation where legend and disputed documents are all that is currently available, that change is significant.