Plantagenet Surname: Y-DNA Haplogroup

Skeletal remains of Richard III (d. 1485), authenticated via mtDNA matches to living matrilineal relatives, carried Y-DNA haplogroup G2a-P287 -- a lineage tracing to Neolithic Near Eastern farmers and rare in the British Isles. This did NOT match haplogroup R1b-U152 (in 4 of 5 tested men) or I-M170 (1 of 5) carried by living documented male-line descendants of Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort, a patrilineal relative via Edward III/John of Gaunt, indicating at least one false-paternity event somewhere across the ~19 intervening generations of the Beaufort/Somerset line. Lead geneticist Turi King (University of Leicester, co-author of the King & Jobling British-surnames work).