You can obtain a DNA sample from a person who has died, and how you go about getting DNA from a deceased person depends almost entirely on timing and what has already happened to the remains. Before burial or embalming, a cheek swab at the funeral home is fast and cheap. After burial, personal items the person used, stored hospital tissue, or a sample from a living relative are usually the practical routes. After cremation, direct sampling is almost never possible. Exhumation exists as a last resort but requires a court order.
Act Before Burial or Embalming
The best sample you will ever get is one taken shortly after death and before the body is embalmed. A buccal swab, where a sterile swab is rubbed against the inside of the cheek, takes seconds and can be done at the funeral home. Funeral directors will often perform the swab if you supply the kit in advance.
Timing matters because embalming chemicals cross-link with DNA and degrade its quality. Embalming does not always destroy DNA outright, but extraction becomes harder and results less reliable. If the body has already been embalmed, a swab is still worth trying; the area behind the earlobe sometimes retains usable skin cells even after cleaning.
Two options exist at this stage. You can coordinate with a testing laboratory that will send its own kit and instructions for a specific test such as paternity. Or you can use a DNA banking service that collects and preserves the sample for later testing, with a one-time cost around $170. Banking makes sense when you want to keep the option open but do not yet know what test you will need.
Which Tissues Actually Yield DNA
Different tissues survive at different rates, and knowing which sources are strongest helps the lab prioritize.
- Bones and teeth are the most durable. The dense structure of teeth protects DNA in the pulp and dentin for years, and bone from dense sites like the femur is a standard forensic source.
- Blood drawn or spotted on a surface shortly after death is excellent. Dried bloodstains on clothing or medical gauze can also work, and hospitals sometimes still hold blood drawn during final treatment.
- Muscle and organ tissue such as kidney or liver can yield DNA within the first few days if refrigerated or frozen. Beyond that window, decomposition drops quality sharply, especially in warm, humid conditions.
- Hair only works when the root follicle is attached, which is where nuclear DNA sits. Cut hair without roots can sometimes be used for mitochondrial analysis, which is more limited.
Cool, dry storage preserves DNA far better than warm or humid exposure. A body that has been refrigerated will produce better samples than one that has not.
Personal Belongings as a DNA Source
Most people do not realize this route exists. If the person has been buried or cremated, everyday items they used can still contain testable DNA. A used toothbrush is one of the most reliable sources. Research confirms that toothbrushes used for as little as one month provide DNA comparable in quantity and quality to a blood sample, with no significant difference between one month of use and three months or longer.
Other items worth considering include razors, hairbrushes with follicles present, dentures, eyeglasses, hearing aids, and sealed envelopes or stamps the person licked. What matters is prolonged or repeated contact with the body. Not every item produces a usable profile, but labs experienced with non-standard samples can often extract enough material.
Handle the item as little as possible. Place it in a clean paper bag or envelope rather than plastic, which traps moisture and speeds degradation. Label it, and contact the testing laboratory before shipping, since packaging requirements differ from lab to lab.
Stored Medical Samples
Hospitals routinely preserve tissue from biopsies and surgeries in formalin-fixed paraffin blocks. These blocks are the standard method for tissue preservation in medical settings and are typically stored for at least five years, often longer depending on the facility. If the deceased had a biopsy or surgical procedure during their lifetime, the pathology department may still hold archived tissue suitable for DNA extraction.
Working with these blocks is harder than working with fresh tissue. Formalin fixation cross-links and fragments DNA, so specialized extraction protocols are needed. Labs experienced with degraded samples can usually recover enough material for analysis. You will likely need to go through the hospital’s medical records department, and access generally requires legal authorization as a next of kin or estate representative.
Blood drawn during a hospital stay is another possibility, but most clinical labs discard routine blood within days to weeks. Ask, but do not count on it.
If the Body Has Been Cremated
Cremation almost always ends the option of direct sampling. The process reaches 1,400 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, well past the point where DNA breaks down, and the resulting powder holds no viable genetic material. In rare cases of incomplete cremation, tiny bone fragments may retain trace, heavily degraded DNA, but recovery of a usable profile is unlikely.
When cremation has already happened, your realistic options are personal belongings, stored medical tissue, or testing a close biological relative as a reference. A biological parent, sibling, or child shares enough genetic material that relationships can often be established through their DNA instead. This is common in paternity and inheritance matters where direct testing is impossible.
Exhumation as a Last Resort
If the person is buried and no other source is available, exhumation is legally possible but requires a court order. You will typically need an attorney to petition the court and show a legitimate reason for disturbing the remains, such as an unresolved paternity dispute, an inheritance claim, or a criminal investigation. Courts weigh that interest against the dignity of the deceased and the wishes of surviving family.
In practice, the process involves coordination among the court, a funeral home, and often a forensic specialist who collects the sample. Because soft tissue is usually gone, bones and teeth are the targets. Costs vary by jurisdiction, burial type, and the professionals involved, but the collection alone often runs several thousand dollars once permits, funeral home labor, and vault or casket opening are counted. Attorney fees for the court order add to that.
Before going this route, exhaust the alternatives: personal belongings, medical archives, funeral home records of any samples taken at death, and DNA from living relatives.
Consent, Authority, and Chain of Custody
Who can authorize collection depends on the purpose. For private testing tied to paternity, inheritance, or genealogy, next-of-kin consent or authorization from the executor of the estate is generally expected. Private laboratories that handle posthumous testing usually ask for a death certificate and documentation of your legal relationship to the deceased. The lab, the agency holding the sample (coroner’s office, hospital, or funeral home), and your attorney may all need to coordinate.
Medical examiners and coroners have their own authority to receive health information about the deceased for identification and cause-of-death purposes, and HIPAA permits disclosures to them for those duties. In criminal investigations, DNA collection often falls within that statutory authority without separate family consent.
If the result may be used in any legal proceeding, chain of custody matters from the first moment. That means documenting every person who handles the sample, when, and where it was stored at each stage from collection through analysis. A break in the chain can make results inadmissible, and the record becomes critical if contamination is later suspected.1National Institute of Justice. What Every Law Enforcement Officer Should Know About DNA Evidence – Chain of Custody of Evidence Court-bound tests should be run by an accredited laboratory; AABB accreditation is the recognized standard for relationship testing, and USCIS requires AABB-accredited labs in immigration cases.2AABB. Standards for Relationship Testing Laboratories
For personal curiosity or genealogical work, the chain of custody bar is looser. But if there is any chance the results could end up in court, treat the sample as evidence from day one. Authenticating a sample after the fact is much harder than documenting it from the start.
What Testing Typically Costs
Standard posthumous DNA testing through a private laboratory starts around $535 for a straightforward case using a biological specimen already held by a coroner’s office or similar agency. That figure climbs when the sample is degraded and needs specialized extraction, when multiple agencies must coordinate, or when a court order is involved. Exhumation adds several thousand dollars once the court petition, funeral home labor, and any forensic specialist fees are counted.
DNA banking without immediate testing runs about $170 as a one-time fee. Attorney fees for court orders, certified death certificates, and shipping to the lab are additional and vary by jurisdiction. In inheritance or paternity cases, those costs are often folded into the broader legal proceeding rather than paid separately to the lab.
When degraded samples are the only option, labs may turn to mitochondrial DNA analysis, which survives better in decomposed remains but is inherited only through the maternal line. It can confirm maternal lineage but cannot establish paternity or distinguish siblings, and it has less discriminatory power than standard nuclear DNA testing.3National Institute of Justice. Analysis of Highly Degraded DNA from Bone Samples Using Probe Capture Enrichment Discuss the limits with the lab before committing to a plan built around a degraded source.