Prince William. Photograph by Robbie Dale
New research from the University of Edinburgh and BritainsDNA claims to have found evidence that Prince William has Indian ancestry.
Researchers traced a rare form of mitochondrial DNA back from the Duke of Cambridge to an Indian woman known as Eliza Kewark, the housekeeper of William’s distant great-grandfather Theordore Forbes, who worked for the British East India Company in Surat, India.
It was rumoured that Kewark was Armenian, as letters written between herself and Forbes were written in Armenian, but this test demonstrates that she was at least partly of Indian descent.
Forbes and Kewark had a daughter called Katherine, from whom Princess Diana was related in an unbroken hereditary line. As the mitochondrial DNA only travels down the female line, it will not be passed down to the offspring of William or Harry.
