A recent discovery at the Diefenbaker Centre in Saskatoon might put to bed the Diefenbaker baby case.
A few strands of hair from the head of former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker may give George Dryden,a Toronto man, the answers he's been looking for.
"I’m trying to find out who my father is. I think its Diefenbaker and I’m trying my best to prove it."
Earlier this year, Dryden had DNA samples from some of Diefenbaker’s belongings tested in hopes of proving that Canada’s 13th Prime Minister was his father. The results were inconclusive.
But now, staff at the Diefenbaker Centre has found some of John Diefenbaker’s hair in an unlabeled box. The centre says when they digitized their records the box of hair was missed.
Both Dryden and the centre are entirely confident the hair will produce DNA results. In order to get DNA from hair you need the follicle, which means the hair would have had to have been plucked from the head of Diefenbaker instead of cut, which is what Michael Atkinson, the executive director of the Diefenbaker Centre believes may have been the case here.
"It’s hair that was taken from Mr. Diefenbaker when he was a child. In the latter part of the 19th century it was customary for families to clip a lock of hair and store it somewhere and that seems to be what happened here."
Dryden plans to have the hair examined Tuesday to see if it can be DNA tested. Dryden says he found out last year through a DNA test that the man he thought was his father in fact is not. He believes his mother and Diefenbaker had an affair in the 1960s.
“My mother was very close to him throughout the 1960s. There is all kinds of media coverage of them and when I met him on the hill he told me I was named after him."
The centre says Diefenbaker was married twice but is not believed to have had any children. He and his wife are buried together on the grounds of the centre. Dryden says this is a personal journey for him that he's committed to pursue.
