DNA was isolated from an early twentieth century museum specimen of no
rthern right whale baleen. A system of stringent controls and a novel
set of cetacean specific primers eliminated contamination from externa
l sources and ensured the authenticity of the results. Sequence analys
is revealed that there were informative nucleotide positions between t
he museum specimen and extant members of the population and closely re
lated species. The results indicate that museum specimens of baleen ca
n be used to assess historical genetic population structure of the gre
at whales.