The post Royal Stewart Descendents Alive and Well appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>
The Seal of Robert II, King of Scots. 1316-1390
Half of all men in the United Kingdom with the surname Stewart, or Stuart, can claim ancestry from Scotland’s Royal family. Research released by ScotlandsDNA has revealed for the first time the individual in the 13th century who founded a branch of the Royal Stewart line.
In the United Kingdom alone there are about 70,000 people with the surname, meaning that around 17,5000 men can now claim descent from the royal bloodline. The source of the line is Sir John Stewart of Bonkyll, who met his demise at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 fighting alongside William Wallace. The Stewart family’s well-documented pedigree allowed ScotlandsDNA to carry out tests on his descendants, and those of his brother James, the 5th High Steward of Scotland and the grandfather of Robert II, the first Stewart king.
Dr Jim Wilson, the group’s chief scientist, discovered a marker that originated more than 700 years ago when ancestry tests were carried out on the descendants of James and Sir John’s sons Richard and Angus. The results show that that the modern descendants of both sons of Sir John carry a Y chromosome marker S781+ that is absent in the descendants of James.
Dr Wilson added: “By a straightforward process of deduction that means that the marker arose in Sir John Stewart of Bonkyll, and not in his father. If it had, the descendants of James would also carry it, and they do not.” Having made the discovery, ScotlandsDNA checked its database of ancestry tests for men with the Stewart surname and found that 20 per cent of them share Sir John’s lineage, while 30 per cent are descended from his brother James.
James’s son Walter, married Marjorie Bruce, the daughter of Robert I, having helped him win the great victory at Bannockburn, and their son became Robert II.
Alistair Moffat, co-founder of ScotlandsDNA, added: “In the year of the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, thousands of Scottish men can claim to be directly descended from the Stewarts who fought alongside Bruce, and they can directly identify with generations of famous figures who shaped Scotland and Britain.” The Duke of Buccleuch, Scotland’s biggest private landowner, who is directly descended from Sir John, and a long line of Scottish and British kings, said he was fascinated by the DNA detective work.
He added: “My family’s history has always been closely involved with the history of Scotland and Britain, but the fact that the rise of a DNA marker has been identified in an individual brings the past even closer, and makes it more personal.
“I am delighted to have been a guinea pig for the sort of history it is now possible to write thanks to DNA research.” The sampling has also, for the first time, distinguished clearly between different cadet branches of the royal Stewarts.
The four branches are the Appin Stewarts who fought at Culloden, the Lennox Stewarts who were direct ancestors of James VI and I, and the Albany and Moray Stewarts who acted as regents.
The post Royal Stewart Descendents Alive and Well appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>The post University Brings Mary, Queen of Scots Back to Life appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>
3D Facial Reconstruction of Mary, Queen of Scots
A renowned team of experts at the University of Dundee have revealed a 3D virtual image of Mary, Queen of Scots as she would have looked at the time of her reign. The image was released to coincide with a major new exhibition on the life of the iconic figure that opened at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh last Friday.
Professor Caroline Wilkinson, from the Forensic and Medical Art Research Group, worked from existing portraits and from what is known of Mary’s biography to reconstruct her face as it would have been following during her reign in Scotland from the ages of 19 to 26, a period when there is no portrait record of her.
Professor Wilkinson created a head-and-neck model using the portraits of Mary as templates. The model was created using 3D modelling software and craniofacial templates before digital artist Janice Aitken sculpted clothing and hair then added textures and lighting to create the finished image. The team have previously worked on major projects to reconstruct the faces of Bach, Cleopatra’s sister, Simon of Sudbury and Richard III among others.
“There were no portraits painted during Mary’s time in Scotland, but there were both before and after this period,” explained Professor Wilkinson. “Normally we would begin the process of craniofacial reconstruction by examining skeletal remains, but of course we didn’t have a skull to work from in this case so had to work from portraits earlier and later than the depiction we were asked to create.
“This meant it was a very different challenge for me and the model is more of an artistic representation rather than the scientific interpretation we would normally produce from skeletal remains. We had to get the facial proportions and size of her features from portraits which, luckily, were from slightly different angles so we could look at her face from more than one viewpoint.
“What we wanted to do was depict how she would have looked at the time she lived in Scotland. This was a difficult time for her marked with illness, grief, miscarriage, and imprisonment so we wanted to show the stresses and strains of life on her face because later portraits make her look significantly older than her years.
“She is not what you would describe as a classic beauty. Mary had quite a big nose and a strong chin so when you describe her verbally she doesn’t sound attractive, but the paleness of her skin, red hair, and strong features meant she had a very striking appearance.”
Janice Aitken then put textures on the model and coloured the skin, hair and eyes to ensure it looked as realistic as possible. She created a short movie of the face being shown from several different angles to give the viewer a more complete impression of Mary during the time of her reign in Scotland.
The post University Brings Mary, Queen of Scots Back to Life appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>