What the 2024 study accomplished, in this context, was to provide the strongest possible answer to the genetic question using the best available comparison material: living descendants of Stéphanie de Beauharnais, whose mitochondrial DNA (haplogroup H1bs) was compared against Hauser’s (haplogroup W). This is not exactly the same as testing Stéphanie’s remains directly, because there remains the theoretical possibility — raised by some Baden prince theory advocates — that there is an undocumented matrilineal break in the descent chain between Stéphanie and her identified living descendants. This theoretical possibility was not addressed in the 2024 study, and it is not addressable without testing Stéphanie’s own remains or finding documentation of a break that does not currently exist in the record.
The researchers noted this limitation in their paper. The comparison they were able to perform was methodologically the best possible within the available materials. It excluded the maternal connection with high confidence. It did not close a theoretical logical gap that remains in the absence of access to Stéphanie’s remains.
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## The Comparison to Richard III: What Identity Resolution Looks Like
Turi King’s involvement in both the Richard III identification and the Kaspar Hauser exclusion study makes the comparison between the two cases instructive.
The Richard III identification in 2012 began with the discovery of skeletal remains beneath a Leicester car park during a planned development project. Physical analysis of the remains identified characteristics consistent with the historical descriptions of Richard III: scoliosis of the spine, wounds consistent with battle injuries, age and physical build consistent with what was known of Richard. The DNA analysis then tested whether the mitochondrial DNA of the skeletal remains matched DNA from known living descendants of Richard’s sister, Anne of York, through a maternal line.