11th March 2013, 10:59 PM
CARTOON REALITY Wrote:I have a relative who works in DNA research - he made one very good point about all of this, and a point all DNA specialists readily acknowledge - a reasonably high proportion of humans have a proclivity towards having extra-marital affairs and always have done (this is not behaviour from which males, females or members of royal families are exempt - and remember children fathered by a paterfamilias but not by the materfamilias are often absorbed silently into households without a word said, if the traffic is in the other direction how is the Paterfamilias to know he's been a cuckhold?) Therefore that chap they took the swab off, when one marches back through his forbears, the statistical probability of him not being a descendant of Richard goes through the roof. It could be added that due to this very natural human conduct none of us are who we presume we are - nature does not care a whit for Surnames.
Now - who's your daddy?
Absolutely right. One wonders why they didn't approach the British Royal family - perhaps because they might discover not, was all it was thought to be..!! I seem to remember Prince Phillip was happy to donate DNA to identify the bones of the Romanovs (his first cousins), but no-one seems to want to volunteer to go back beyond Princess Alexandrina (or Victoria as she is more popularly known).....there is a chap who has been trying to get Victoria's mother's personal physician disinterred from a cemetery in Sevenoaks for the past 30 years or so, 'cos he reckons there may be a genetic link to the current royal family. Now that would make good TV....
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...