Prince William's Indian heritage revealed

New research from the University of Edinburgh and BritainsDNA claims to have found that Prince William has Indian ancestry.

Tracing a rare form of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which is inherited almost unchanged from a mother researchers found that the Duke of Cambridge traces back to an Indian woman known as Eliza Kewark.

Eliza was listed as the "housekeeper" to the Duke's great-great-great-great-great grandfather Theodore Forbes a Scottish merchant who worked for the East India Company in Surat, a busy port north of Bombay.

It had been believed that she was Armenian and letters between the two are written in Armenian, however genetically she was at least part Indian.

Eliza and Theodore had a daughter called Katherine and it is through an unbroken line of daughters through to Princess Diana that the young royal has inherited his Indian DNA, which is shared by his brother Harry.

The Times claims that DNA samples were taken from "two distant cousins" of the Prince to carry out the tests. The paper quotes Mary Roach, Princess Diana’s maternal aunt, as saying: “I always assumed that I was part-Armenian so I am delighted that I also have an Indian background.”

However because mtDNA travels down the female line neither Prince Harry not Price William will pass the rare form on to their own descendants, however other Indian DNA may well continue in the royal line.