PRINCE Harry and girlfriend Meghan Markle are distant cousins it has been revealed, thanks to family links with the Queen Mother.

The prince, who started dating the American actress last year, has more in common with the 36-year-old than first thought as a genealogical investigation discovered the couple are related through a late 15th Century ancestor of the Queen Mother.

The Queen Mother herself always had strong links to the North-East as she was born Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and her relatives John and Josephine Bowes built the Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle.

And now researchers have claimed that Ms Markle’s connection to the royal family comes from the forebears of her father Thomas Markle, an Emmy-winning cinematographer, on his mother’s side.

Researchers say the pair can be traced all the way back to an Englishman called Ralph Bowes, Ms Markle’s ancestor from 15 generations ago.

He was a High Sheriff of County Durham, whose family seat was Streatlam Castle with its extensive estates.

His granddaughter Bridget Bowes became a dutiful wife to John Hussey, of Dorking, Surrey.

His grandson, Christopher Hussey moved to America in 1632, helping to found Nantucket, Massachusetts, and it is believed this is the line of the family that would eventually produce Ms Markle.

The Bowes estates and Streatlam Castle continued to pass down from Bridget’s uncle through a succession of male heirs.

A couple of centuries later the direct line to the royal family and Prince Harry then starts, when the estate and the castle were passed down to Sir George Bowes, an MP.

His first wife died childless, but his second wife gave birth to one child, a daughter – Mary Bowes – who in 1767 married John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.

John Lyon added Bowes to his name – a strict condition of inheriting Streatlam Castle and surrounding estates – and the Bowes-Lyon dynasty was forged.

Five generations later, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married the Duke of York, who would later become George VI and Queen Elizabeth – later the Queen Mother.