Geneticist Professor Turi King reveals the secrets of DNA

With the huge rise in DNA testing (it’s the second most Googled subject), we are now able to ask questions previously impossible to answer about our families, ancestry and health.  We can discover our lost heritage, track down missing relatives and find details of our family trees.

Join Professor Turi King, co-presenter of the BBC Two series ‘DNA Family Secrets’, on her UK tour, as she uncovers how DNA has revolutionised genealogy and forensics, helping us trace long lost family members, catch criminals and make remarkable historical discoveries.  She will reveal how your unique DNA identifies you and your family, how your surname can give you a glimpse into the lives of your ancestors and whether you really are who you think you are.

Professor King will also discuss how she led the team who cracked one of the biggest forensic DNA cases in history - the identification of King Richard III.

Turi’s Bio:

Professor Turi King is a scientist, presenter, speaker and author who is passionate about communicating science to the public. Turi uses genetics in the fields of forensics, history, genealogy and archaeology. She is perhaps best known for her work “cracking one of the biggest forensic DNA cases in history” (Globe and Mail, February 2013) leading the genetics and identification of the remains of King Richard III.

Turi currently features in the BBC’s DNA Family Secrets alongside Stacey Dooley, the third series due to air in Autumn 2023, and presents Unearthed: Ancient Murder Mysteries, out June 2023.  She’s recently appeared with Dan Snow on The Black Death on Channel 5 and with Lucy Worsley in her series Unsolved Histories about the Princes in the Tower. She presented the Radio 4 documentary Genetics and the Longer Arm of the Law. Her other credits include featuring in British As Folk (UKTV), The Gadget Show (Channel 5), Cold Case (ZDF Germany), Britain’s Lost Battlefields (Channel 5), Richard III: The King in the Car Park (Channel 4), Britain’s Secret Treasures (ITV), Crimewatch (BBC) among many others. She’s appeared on many programmes on BBC Radio 4 including The Life Scientific, Inside Science and The Reunion as well as radio programmes in Canada and elsewhere.

Tickets: https://turiking.co.uk/

TOUR SCHEDULE:

SEPTEMBER

23 September        Bristol, 1532

28 September        Ilkley, King’s Hall

OCTOBER

1 October              Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre

2 October              Stafford, Gatehouse

3 October              Frome, Cheese and Grain

8 October              London Richmond Theatre

11 October            Shrewsbury, Severn Theatre

14 October            Monmouth, Blake Theatre

15 October            Exeter, Northcott

17 October            Cheltenham, Town Hall

22 October            Worcester, Huntingdon Hall

23 October            Aylesbury, The Waterside

24 October            Loughborough, Town Hall

30 October            Royal Spa Centre, Leamington Spa

SYNDICATED INTERVIEW:

You're presenting Family History With DNA Detective Professor Turi King, your first live tour. What is it about?

It's about my career and some of the fascinating projects I've been involved with.

Give us a brief rundown...

I think my talk is really about the power of DNA. I talk about my work on BBC Two’s DNA Family Secrets with Stacey Dooley, how important DNA is in catching criminals and tracing family, and also about leading the identification of the remains of King Richard III. I also talk about people who are adopted or donor-conceived and how you can use DNA to trace biological parents, and some of the ethical issues around DNA testing - what if you find people you're related to and they don’t want to be found?

How did genetics become your thing?

I was born in Nottingham and my family moved to Canada when I was six weeks old. I started as an archaeologist in Vancouver, being involved in digs on First Nations projects. Then I studied archaeology at Cambridge and moved into biological anthropology. While at Cambridge, I was taught about the Romanov case, where they used archaeology and genetics to investigate the remains of the Russian royal family murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918, and that was it: it was then that I knew I wanted to switch to genetics to be able to use it to answer questions in history and archaeology. I'm now Professor of Genetics and Public Engagement at the University of Leicester.  The public engagement side is all about making science and genetics approachable for the lay person.

You did an early project with national treasure Sir David Attenborough at the University of Leicester.
Some of my first research was looking at the link between surnames and genetics. Surnames generally come down through the male line, and the Y chromosome is a segment of our DNA which also goes down the male line. Sir David Attenborough, who grew up in Leicester, took part in my surname project – he sort of became the poster boy for it. The question was, if you share a surname, does this mean you all share a common ancestor from hundreds of years ago? If so, you should all share a type of Y chromosome. When I looked at the Attenboroughs, about 90 per cent of those I tested had identical or near identical Y chromosome types showing they were almost all related to one another.

You’re also going to be talking about the Richard III project. Is it true he wasn’t really found under the R in the carpark?

Yes! That’s a myth! I was there and can categorically say Richard III wasn’t found under the R in the carpark.  I’ll be taking people on a bit of a behind-the-scenes tour of the project. I was part of the project from the summer of 2011, over a year before the excavation started, and then helping with the excavation and then leading the identification of the remains. What I love about it is that it was just such a wonderful project involving so many people all bringing their expertise to the table.

And the science on the project was – and I'm very proud to say this – mainly led by women.

Do you talk about the timeframe of your work?

For DNA Family Secrets, it took me just 17 minutes to find a family connection for one of the cases featured in the next series, but I worked on the Richard III identification for two years. In that case, the DNA was really degraded and we don’t have an ancient DNA lab at the University of Leicester so I had to travel to go and do the work and develop new experiments to do what I wanted to do. Those things take time and then we, of course, had to wait for the work to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Do you detect a growing interest in  genetics?

Well apparently after sex, family history and genealogy are the most searched terms on the internet. I always like to say they sort of go together. And now lots of people are being given DNA tests by their family for their birthday or Christmas. And there can be a sad irony around this as some people find out they're not related to who they thought they were.

What is the ancestry most people want you to tell them they have?

Royalty! For sure! And I have to tell them that we’re all related to royalty somehow. Or Viking -  lots of guys want to know if they have Viking ancestry.

Have you done your own family tree?

I have, and I know several generations far back on both sides. But not found any royalty yet!

Do you enjoy your work on DNA Family Secrets?

I love it – because of how much it means to people to find answers to questions they’ve had all their lives – especially finding family. They’re in tears,  I’m in tears. It’s such longed-for information that we can give them - it’s something they have been missing their entire life. I liken it to a jigsaw puzzle, and what DNA can do is fill in part of that jigsaw puzzle. Being able to say, ‘We’ve found your mum for you, or your dad for you’ is just brilliant, but I feel a massive responsibility because their sense of self is changing in front of your eyes.

What was the best news you have given to someone on the show?
Oh my goodness, so many! Margaret from series one stands out as one - she was adopted and didn’t know who her parents were. She wanted to know who her mum was and really just have a photograph. She was in her sixties and thought she had left it too late, so then to be able to tell her not only had we found her mum but that she was alive was just so moving. To be able to do that, what a gift.

And the worst?

When we find someone but they have already died, or you find the parent and they don’t want anything to do with their child. It’s heartbreaking. It's why we always use an intermediary. We have a really lovely social worker who will approach the biological parent and ask if they would like to be put in contact. It’s all done with care and everyone has access to a wonderful counsellor we have on the show.

Will you be telling us anything about the new series of DNA Family Secrets starting in the autumn?

I can’t say too much but it has some amazing stories.

You have also advised a few crime writers, including Patricia Cornwell?

I have – and coincidentally, in one of her books, there is a Canadian who goes to the University of Leicester as a student and then is murdered in Boston. Gulp! Novelists and TV people want to get stuff right and that's good, because it means I don’t stand in front of the television and want to throw things at it when they get the science wrong.

You are visiting lots of different cities for your live show. Do you ever hunt around local graveyards to see what the dead can reveal?

If I have the time, yes. I love to look for unusual surnames, or names that are really local. I love looking for those.

What has a career in DNA taught you?

It sounds like a 1970s hippie thing, but we’re all part of a huge human family. We’re all related, it’s simply a matter of degree.