This is a list of notable people whose ancestry has been traced to

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Arts and entertainment

Gujarat's British royalty connection

In June 2013, Gujarat came to the media fore when it was discovered that the

British monarchy The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiwi ...

have Indian mitochondrial DNA traced through

Princess Diana Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her ac ...

which has been maternally inherited by both her sons,

Prince William William, Prince of Wales, (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982) is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. Born in London, William was educat ...

and

Prince Harry Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984) is a member of the British royal family. He is the younger son of Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. He is fifth in the line of succ ...

. The connection traces back eight generations, to Eliza Kewark, who was housekeeper to Prince William's ancestor Theodore Forbes, born in 1788, a Scottish

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

from a landowning family who had travelled to India to work for the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

Surat Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is now ...

, a port north of

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. The DNA was passed down through Eliza's daughters and granddaughters to Princess Diana. Eliza is variously described in contemporary documents as "a dark-skinned native woman", "an Armenian woman from Bombay", and "Mrs. Forbesian". Genealogist

William Addams Reitwiesner William Addams Reitwiesner (March 8, 1954 – November 12, 2010) was an American genealogist who traced the ancestry of United States political figures, European royalty and celebrities. Biography Reitwiesner was born on 8 March 1954 in Havre de ...

assumed she was Armenian. In June 2013, BritainsDNA announced that

genealogical DNA test A genealogical DNA test is a DNA-based test used in genetic genealogy that looks at specific locations of a person's genome in order to find or verify ancestral genealogical relationships, or (with lower reliability) to estimate the ethnic mixt ...

s on two of William's distant cousins in the same direct maternal line confirm that Eliza Kewark was of

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

descent, via her direct maternal line.

References

{{Gujarat

Lists of people from Gujarat

Arts and entertainment

Gujarat's British royalty connection

See also

References