Biology and dna samples to determine parental lineage
Before DNA sequencing was widely available, some lineage information could be determined using restriction fragment length polymorphism, a kind of "DNA fingerprinting".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_fragment_length_polymorphism

Analyzing nuclear DNA would give information about both parents, while mitochondrial DNA would give information specifically about maternal lineage, as we inherit our mitochondrial DNA only from our mothers.