As it has been said that Richard I had no children what if he did how could we check his DNA?

Question

How can it be proven that Richard I was celibate or sterile?

Comments

I edited the uestion to add tags and to correct the spelling of "celibate."

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A negative can't be proven. We can't prove he was sterile or celibate. If someone claimed to be descended from him, then they would be obliged to prove it.

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Richard I Plantagenet had one acknowledged child born of an unknown mother.

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So he was neither celibate nor sterile.

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I disconnected my spell check as I feel it makes you lazy, I have a huge collection of dictionaries of all vintage from different countries and around the world, however their spelling is often varied for the same words and who has the time to check every word they print, I only bother with the ones that look slightly dyslexic because I have hit the wrong keys or typed so fast I am a sentence ahead of myself although I always notice with an email once it has gone, gone, gone there is a word jumping out at me that is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Answer 1

You would check a proposed descendant's DNA against the DNA of descendants of his siblings and close relatives. However, that's very far back.

Comments

I would agree that this is a very difficult prospect. Because DNA alters from generation to generation in small ways, getting enough evidence to triangulate that far back would require more than just a few samples. This kind of sounds like a PhD or Masters thesis effort to gather that sort of data, evaluate the results, and attempt to prove something that may not even be possible to fully prove.

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Sorry for me I stand corrected  there was only one Richard for me he was such a romantic figure and so many people were still discussing him long after his death. Not long after Richard body was found they contacted people who they thought were descended from the same branch of the family that he was only to discover the mother was correct but not his father, however this was not a surprise to a lot of people as sufficient had been written about events at that time suggesting his mother was sleeping with others hardly surprising in those days, when the Kings and Knights of old were away for so long fighting in other lands or visiting their other mistresses around the country after all whats good for the goose is good for the gander just dont get caught I suppose? DNA must have dispelled so many myths and legends about the heros and adventurers from the past. I see Richard 1 Did have one child Richard Cognac by an unidentified mother I couldn't see Richard II having any children either. Seems an unfortunate name for a King who wanted heirs to call them Richard.

Answer 2

I can't imagine how you could prove either.

However, for the time being, the challenge is to prove he wasn't.  (And do you mean celibate?)  If no one can prove their descent from him, then for practical/genealogical purposes, it doesn't matter, does it?

Sorry!  For the second time I am editing my reply.  Did you mean Richard III or Richard I?  I found plenty of Google links to the former, but none to the latter.  If you have information that could enlighten us, please provide some links.

Comments

Here is the Richard I link on WT:  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Plantagenet-248

Answer 3

It is said that he had two illigitimate children, this site lists one: https://familypedia.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England_(1157-1199), but would have to be further investigated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_of_Cognac#:~:text=Philip%20of%20Cognac%20(early%201180s,Cognac%2C%20France%2C%20in%20Charente.

Answer 4

I read this post as being about Richard I, but there was a really interesting attempt to determine if certain remains where those of Richard III a few years ago.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6631

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30281333