Richard III and DNA testing

[LizzieW]

Erato - Until someone else from the UK confirms the US press story, I'm not convinced that there was any clerical honour guard for the remains of Richard III.  I've heard absolutely nothing on the BBC or UK Independent Radio and TV to confirm that story.

[Erato]

Erato - Until someone else from the UK confirms the US press story, I'm not convinced that there was any clerical honour guard for the remains of Richard III.  I've heard absolutely nothing on the BBC or UK Independent Radio and TV to confirm that story.

The NYT is not infallible, of course, but it's hard to believe they could have made that up.  Maybe the foreign press got a separate tour and the clerics were present then but not when the British reporters got their tour.

[Ruskie]

"I completely agree. I can't stand this kind of mawkishness."

It's not just the mawkishness.  They've had, probably, hundreds of excavated human skeletons go through their lab but the others were just regular British peasants and were consequently treated as specimens.  No one felt there was any need for a clerical honor guard until they got the body of a king.

Agreed. But there will be a different attitude (rightly or wrongly) when a King is unearthed. I see it as historically and archaeologically interesting, but no need for ott pomp and ceremony. 

[gazania]

My son just emailed his take:

A horse, a horse, my carpark for a horse.

[Ruskie]

Just doing a bit of reading and apparently there is talk of testing the bones of his two nephews, now interred at Westminster Abbey, as there is no real proof of who they are. I hope they do it!

This has been mooted before but permission has never been granted. I wonder why?

[Temic]

From what I understand there is a continuous line of MALE descent to the Duke of Somerset, but male dna is harder to extract, and if there was no match, one might assume there was an illegitimate birth along the way.
Regards

The problem with yDNA - and this answers in first post in the thread - is that if anything it's less certain than mtDNA, because (so-called) illegitimacy was (and still is) a significant factor, with rates higher than is often acknowledged. As a recorded mother-child relationship, in other words, is more certain than a father-child relationship, so historians and archeaologists prefer to use mtDNA for that reason.

The other problem is that, because it's DNA, there is a certain prestige to the evidence, as if it's somehow "proved" the link. It hasn't, as far as I can tell. The findings are consistent with the other evidence that points to the identity of the skeleton - but by itself it means little. My understanding is that "only" about 30 base pairs have been published to the media and we've no idea how rare the mtDNA is that we're talking about; the rarer it is, obviously, the better, but again, archeaologists and historians would want to see a lot more base-pairs. Answers to those questions will no doubt come when published a proper, peer-reviewed paper, rather than a media news conference, though.

But I do think the detail of the how the DNA was tested, and why, is revealing with respect to the current commerical DNA packages for genealogists (discussed ad nauseaum on this site) and the usefulness of the information derived from living descendents about a putative ancestor more than 3 or 4 generations back.

[gazania]

Interesting site:

http://plantagenetdna.webs.com/

[degenerate]

As a recorded mother-child relationship, in other words, is more certain than a father-child relationship, so historians and archeaologists prefer to use mtDNA for that reason.

While what you say about relative certainty is true, mtDNA prevails in ancient DNA studies because everyone has it but only males have Y-DNA. It is also easier to recover from degraded sources (Y-DNA has 50 million base pairs while mtDNA has only about 17 thousand).

[Finley 1]

Very interesting -loved the discoveries   

Its a wonder they didnt check my DNA though !!! I am descendant of the Yorks of Shenton, a little village next to the Bosworth field.      Surely there must be a link   
Joking aside and thinking about how History is written..  It makes me realise that maybe in 500 yrs the lying Politician will always be associated with the event of this discovery.  Therefore will achieve more than his 15mins ... I think I will come back in 500yrs just to read the History books.
 
xin