11 February 2015
S4C's primetime magazine programme Heno will this week launch an appeal to find Welsh descendants of Britain's lost Royal dynasty – the Tudors.
The programme will make the appeal for men with the surname of Tudor to test with CymruDNAWales – a project undertaking ancestral DNA testing on a scale never seen before in Wales.
The exciting project is a partnership between S4C, CymruDNAWales, Trinity Mirror - publishers of the Western Mail and the Daily Post – and production company Green Bay Media.
A new S4C series, DNA Cymru, which starts on Sunday 1 March with a one-off special, presents the journey of humanity from its origins in Africa to the earliest populations of the land we now know as Wales, right up to the inhabitants of today’s Wales.
In the series DNA Cymru, presenters Beti George, Dr Anwen Jones and Jason Mohammad will be explaining how the science of DNA can reveal genetic blueprints that stretch back beyond recorded history.
In its attempt to find Welsh relatives of the Tudor dynasty, Heno will be giving away 20 testing kits to likely candidates. Their results will reveal whether or not they are related to each other in the male line and which lineage they belong to. The first of the 20 kits will be presented live on air in tonight's (Wednesday's) Heno from Caernarfon to Steffan Tudor, a teacher at Ysgol Glan Clwyd, St Asaph.
Angharad Mair, presenter of Heno, said "It's very exciting that this DNA project allows us to look for those people who might be related to the Tudors. We hope to find people who live in Wales and are part of the ancestry of Henry Tudor. Any men with the surname Tudor or anyone who knows a male of that surname are welcome to contact us on heno@tinopolis.com"
CymruDNAWales will also trace family trees to try to identify living descendants of Owen Tudor, the progenitor of the dynasty, to see if a link can be made to present day Tudor samples of this pedigree. If two Tudor men match one another, their relationship can be proved, and if their family trees can be traced back to known ancient Tudor families, the Y chromosome type of that family can be known. And living descendants of Britain’s lost Royal dynasty will have been found.
In the series DNA Cymru starting on St David's Day, members of the public and celebrities such as Michael Sheen, Bryn Terfel, Iwan Rheon and Sian Lloyd will find out about their roots in the distant past.
The series, made for S4C by Green Bay Media, is investigating the role of ancestral DNA testing in uncovering the bloodlines of other prominent Welsh families.
Series editor, John Geraint says, “This is an epic story of a people’s journey through history. We’ll have revelations about the genetic heritage of some real Welsh icons, as we trace the amazing story of who the Welsh are and where we have come from.”
See the series site on http://www.s4c.co.uk/cymrudnawales/e_index.shtml
