Royal Revelation: DNA Analysis Cracks 200-Year-Old Mystery of 'Lost European Prince'
Lost princes and princesses have captivated historians for centuries. An intriguing mystery for researchers has been the missing case of Grand Duke Carl's alleged heir, Science Alert reported.
In 1828, a "half-wild" 16-year-old boy came in front of the world and the whole of Europe went into frenzy, because of the rumor that he might be the 'lost' son of the Duke of York, Science Alert reported. The boy was found in the German city of Nuremberg and claimed to have been raised by a 'mystery man' in a cold and dark dungeon.
The child could not speak well but could communicate that his name was Kaspar Hauser, Science Alert reported. Rumors began to go around that the boy was none other than the son of the recently deceased Grand Duke Carl, who was the former prince of Baden, a territory in south Germany, before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
Grand Duke Carl had a son, but the boy died as an infant in 1812, Science Alert reported. Several stories began to go around regarding the boy's death, with people claiming that the whole thing was a ruse to protect the would-be prince from attackers. A popular theory put forward by many was that the infant got kidnapped and then swapped out with a dying baby.
The rumors surrounding the feral boy intensified when five years after his discovery, he was mysteriously stabbed and killed by assailants, Science Alert reported. This made him popular, and books, plays, and movies were made inspired by the 'prince'.
Experts all over the world have tried to use the available DNA samples to find the boy's origins or whether he has any royal connections with Grand Duke Carl, Science Alert reported.
"It's claimed to be one of the biggest historical mysteries of the 19th century," said geneticist Turi King, who in the past helped in identifying King Richard III's skeleton, in a podcast.
King joined a team of researchers trying to match the feral boy's hair samples with the descendants of the House of Baden, Science Alert reported. Past attempts at this matching have failed because the samples were deemed to not have been enough for the process to go through.
"After death, our DNA degrades into shorter and shorter fragments until there is nothing left to sequence," explained King, Science Alert reported. "The DNA analysis methods available in the 1990s and early 2000s worked well with long DNA fragments, but didn't give consistent results when they did DNA analysis of the various items from Hauser."
The DNA was the same across all hair samples and also matched a 1990s analysis of the feral boy's remains, Science Alert reported. This proved the authenticity of the specimens available with the team and the fact that the available samples were of the feral boy.
No match was found between the boy's mtDNA and his supposed royal sisters and their descendants, Science Alert reported. This proved that he had no connection to Grand Duke Carl's family. Now, the researchers are focusing on finding out his real background, with the use of evidence available to them.