The emergence of DNA profiling has had a huge impact upon fields as diverse as criminology, medicine and insurance, but it also has implications for clans and those whose historic titles depend upon paternity.
Three recent cases have provided dramatic proof of the potential of DNA to intrude in these areas.
The first has a plot that would rival the most outrageous episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show, with DNA evidence used in court, for the first time, to prove a right of succession to a Scottish baronetcy.
Such was the importance of this benchmark legal ruling that the Queen herself was responsible for asking the country’s most senior judges to decide if DNA evidence should be admissible in disputes over hereditary titles.
The seven judges of the judicial committee of the Privy Council duly ruled that it could, during a trial to decide the succession of an ancient baronetcy in rural Scotland. This decision made accountant Murray Pringle, the Baronet Pringle of Stichill, rather than Simon Pringle, the son of the last baronet.
The battle for the baronetcy of a tiny village in the Scottish Borders was sparked by an innocent family tree project designed to trace the Pringle lineage back to the 13th century. This was followed by genetic analysis which revealed that the last baronet came from a different bloodline to his relatives, suggesting that there may have been an illegitimate child in a previous generation.
The baronetcy of Stichill was granted to Robert Pringle of Stichill and the ‘male heirs from his body’ in 1863. The 10th baronet, Sir Steuart, a retired Royal Marines commander, died in 2013 and assumed that the title would pass to his son, Simon.
But DNA evidence taken from Sir Steuart as part of a Pringle surname project – instigated by Murray to prove chieftainship of the clan – showed that Steuart was not part of the male family line. The break in the bloodline came after the death of the eighth baronet, Sir Norman, in 1919. His wife Florence declared – wrongly – that their eldest son, also called Norman, was entitled to succeed to the title.
Murray Pringle’s lawyers argued that as DNA evidence proved that the eighth baronet was not Norman’s father and therefore the title should go to the offspring of Sir Norman’s second son – Murray Pringle. Despite Simon Pringle’s lawyers arguing that DNA evidence should not be used to resolve family disputes the evidence was upheld.
In delivering the Privy Council’s verdict, Lord Hodge said that the case had raised ‘a question of general importance’ about using DNA evidence ‘to challenge an apparent heir’s entitlement to succeed to a title or to property by its exposure of irregular occurrences in previous generations of a family.’
While Lord Hodge was aware that this ruling could ‘reopen a family succession many generations into the past’ and could have enormous financial implications, the other two DNA cases to hit the news have had more benign consequences.
The first concerns James Monroe, the fifth President of the US, who was in office from 1817 to 1825. A North Carolina-based project has found a direct link between Monroe and Robert Munro of Foulis, a 16th Century clan chief from the north side of the Cromarty Firth. Researchers tracked down a distant relation of the President – who fought in the American Revolutionary War, bought Florida from Spain and had Liberia’s capital named after him – and found the two men shared the same uncommon Y chromosome DNA signature.
DNA evidence is also forcing a whole clan to rethink its history. The MacNeils of Barra have for centuries believed that they are descendants of Ireland’s greatest King, Niall of the Nine Hostages. Instead, DNA evidence has recently proved that they have no Irish links and are descended from Vikings, which is, with hindsight, perhaps unsurprising for a warlike clan famous for its seamanship and pillaging by Birlinn longships.
This feature was originally published in 2016.
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