In the teeth of the evidence

Here, a little-known television journalist-historian named Dominic Selwood disputes the identity of Richard III’s remains, despite the mtDNA match with collateral descendants in Canada and Australia, their height, age of death, era of death, scoliosis, battle injuries, region of origin and the location of his original burial at the choir of the Greyfriars. In fact…

Ten years ago today …

… it was announced that the remains discovered on the site of the Leicester Greyfriars were indeed those of Richard III. On this page you can see both mitochodrial DNA lines: the first by John Ashdown-Hill and the back-up by Leicester University, both to collateral descendants in Commonwealth nations. Here you can see how easy it…

The forensic genealogy that identified Richard III moves on apace

Almost six years ago now, it was confirmed that the remains identified under a car park in Leicester were those of Richard III. One of the principal components of this identification was that the remains shared the mtDNA of Michael Ibsen, a maternal line relative traced by John Ashdown-Hill, as was Wendy Duldig by the…

Will the sequencing of Richard’s genome prove he was good or bad….?

On Tuesday 2nd March a new series commences on BBC2 (9 pm) about what may or may not be revealed by the in-depth study of DNA and sequencing genomes. Of course, this will include Richard. How can it not? Especially when Professor Turi King is involved. Richard is surely the most important and prominent historical…