Duke’s DNA ‘shows Indian descent’

Scientists testing saliva samples from Prince William’s relatives discovered a direct link between the future king and a woman who was part-Indian.

The connection goes back just eight generations, with the woman, Eliza Kewark, being the Duke’s great, great, great, great, great grandmother. She was housekeeper to his five times great-grandfather, Theodore Forbes, born in 1788, a Scottish merchant who worked for the East India Company in Surat, a port north of Bombay.

The research was carried out by BritainsDNA, a genetic ancestry testing company, which found that the Duke’s genetic connection to the populous Commonwealth nation runs through the maternal line.

They used a mixture of traditional genealogy and cutting-edge science to come up with the findings.

The research shows that the second in line to the throne carries Eliza’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Mitochondrial DNA is inherited mostly unchanged by children from their mother.