A Canadian scientist could soon have the lingering mystery of aviator Amelia Earhart's disappearance licked.

Donya Yang, a forensic scientist at Simon Fraser University, is extracting DNA from some of Earhart's personal letters and envelopes -- which should have still genetic evidence left over from her saliva.

The letters were written by Earhart in the years before her disappearance over the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

Yang will then have a potential sample that could prove a genetic match for a finger bone fragment, found on the island of Nikumaroro in 2009, that has been touted as possibly belonging to Earhart.

Earhart -- who became an international celebrity after flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean -- vanished along with her navigator, Fred Noonan, while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a twin-engined Lockheed Electra on July 5, 1937.

Yang will compare the DNA from the letters with that of Earhart's late sister, Muriel, and other living family members to positively identify the genetic material as that of Earhart.

The profile can then be used to determine the authenticity of the finger bone.

The letters are being furnished to the university by Simon Fraser University health sciences student Justin Long, who obtained them from a collection of mostly personal Earhart letters from his grandfather, Elgen Long, a lifelong Earhart researcher and author of Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved.

Earhart biographer Jean L. Backus gave 400 letters she collected to write the book Letters to Amelia to the elder Long, who kept a handful and donated the rest to Harvard University.

"We chose four letters that have a very strong chance that Earhart would have handled and licked herself," said Justin Long who is helping to fund the analysis.