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An Anonymous Coward writes:

BBC News writes:

Scientists in the Swiss city of Basel have solved a decades-old mystery over the identity of a mummified woman.

Their research revealed a surprise: the woman is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother of UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

The body was uncovered in 1975 while renovations were being done on Basel's Barfüsser Church.

[...] There was no gravestone to indicate her identity, but initial testing of her wooden coffin suggested it dated from the 16th Century.

Another clue: her body was riddled with mercury - a standard treatment for syphilis from the late 15th to the 19th Century. Highly toxic mercury treatment was more often a kill than a cure and it was this that preserved her body.

The story continues to explain how scientists using historical records and DNA testing have managed to ascertain (with 99.8% probability) that the mummy was "none other than Anna Catharina Bischoff. Born in Basel in 1719, she died there in 1787." The Bischoffs are a well-established and prominent family in the Basel region.

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