King Richard III and his mitochondrial DNA haplogroup J1c2c3

Abstract

King Richard III has been a controversial figure for centuries and the finding of his skeletal remains under a car park in 2012 has only raised his profile. But what is generally unknown is that he belongs to an exceedingly uncommon mitochondrial haplogroup, J1c2c3. Two maternal descendants of his extended family have already been traced by orthodox genealogical methods, but no other possible descendants have been found in Europe. In our study we have identified a total of seven lineages containing people in haplogroup J1c2c3 through the use of direct-to-customer DNA testing. All the lineages are American, and unfortunately they do not link back to King Richard III, as yet. However, we do suggest that because of the small size of haplogroup J1c2c3 the people we have identified may well be descendants of the immediate family of King Richard III.