DNA could help ID a king

A London familys DNA could be the missing link in a centuries-long quest to find the remains of King Richard III.

A team of archeologists at the University of Leicester in England exhumed a skeleton believed to be Richards beneath one of the universitys parking lots Wednesday and are hoping DNA evidence from the London family will prove their suspicions true.

Richard was killed in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth often cited as the deciding battle in the War of the Roses by Henry Tudor VII, father of the famed King Henry VIII.

Richards Machiavellian rise to power its believed he had his nephews murdered in order to seize the thrown and short two-year reign as king is chronicled in Shakespeares play Richard III.

In 2005, British historian John Ashdown-Hill traced Richards bloodline to Joy Ibsen, a retired journalist who moved to London, Ont., from England after the Second World War and raised a family.

Ashdown-Hill discovered Ibsen and Richard shared a maternal ancestor, Cecily Neville.

Though Ibsen died in 2008, she passed the gene on to her three children: Michael, who lives in the U..K; Jeff, who lives in Toronto; and Leslie on Vancouver Island.

Its pretty exciting, said Jeff, 49. I wasnt expecting the findings to be so concise ... Im hoping that if theres a proper funeral for him, well get invited and maybe get a chance to rub elbows with some royals.

The skeleton exhumed Wednesday was found in whats believed to be the choir of the lost Church of the Grey Friars, the same place historical records indicate Richard was buried. Initial examinations found trauma to the skull consistent with a battle injury and a barbed arrow through the skeletons upper back.

Especially telling is the spinal deformity found on the exhumed skeleton. Its believed Richard had severe scoliosis, a form of spinal curvature that caused his right shoulder to appear higher than the left, the same type of curvature found on the skeleton.

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DNA could help ID a king