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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: ErinCasting on Wednesday 28 October 20 15:18 GMT (UK)
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Does your family tree connect back to the British royal family? If so, Daisybeck Studios would love to speak to you!
We are looking to find people who think they might have a historic ancestral connection to Britain's royals for a new royal history tv programme.
It might be a family rumour or maybe you’ve done some research and spotted a historic link to the crown...
We’d love to hear your story and to help find out if your royal rumours are true. We are working with a team of genealogists who will be trying to prove these ancient royal connections.
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Should have plenty of candidates, but rather depends on the timescale of the connection ?
Go back far enough and most of the population of UK descent will have a connection to Royalty eventually.
And what is a connection ? I had someone who wanted me to prove they were "descended" from the Stuart Royal family of the 1600s. There was indeed a "connection" - I can't remember the exact details but it was something like the wife of the person's uncle had a 2nd cousin who married someone who was a distant relative of an illegitimate child of Charles II (I think) .... not really "descended from" !
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Personally, I’m more than pleased to think that I’m probably not!
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In 1911, the Marquis of Ruvigny estimated from documented family trees that Edward’s living descendants numbered around 80,000 to 100,000. The number today, after four more generations of children, would be much greater.
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In 1911, the Marquis of Ruvigny estimated from documented family trees that Edward’s living descendants numbered around 80,000 to 100,000. The number today, after four more generations of children, would be much greater.
I've seen estimates that put the number of Edward III's living descendants at around 4-5million, and some have suggested that virtually everyone (99%+) of predominantly English ancestry is descended from him in some way....
http://community.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/EdwardIIIDescent.php
Take it back to earlier kings, e.g. William I, and the probability is even higher.
...have to say it isn't something that interests me as a genealogist.
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...
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If Edward III does indeed have around 4 - 5 million living descendants, since the population of the UK is around 70 million, that suggests that even assuming all his descendants are still in the UK, only about 7% have any descent from him. In reality, the chances are more than half of those descendants will be in the US, Australia Canada etc, so the true value is probably closer to about 3%.
As for the suggestion that everyone with "English" Ancestry is related to Edward III, surely since Edward was Plantagent, their ancestry would be French, not English.
I always find it amusing to see Richard III talked about as the last "English" king of England given that the Tudors were Welsh, the Stewarts Scottish and our current Royal Family are somehow classed as German (despite their descent depending on the Stewart line). The Plantagent and Norman kings were no more English than the Tudors, Stewarts and Hanoverians were.
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On the other hand - going the other way - assuming you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 g-grandparents, 16 gg-grandparents, 32 ggg-grandparents etc. etc., by the time you get back to the Bronze Age you're likely to have more ancestors than the population of the UK at that time - I'm sure somebody has worked the figures out!
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I'm just delighted, considering some of the people who claim to have "Royal" links, that I'm really sure I haven't ANY!
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I have many illegitimate ancestors in my tree, but as yet only one royal bastard. ;D ;D ;D
Philip
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Leaving aside Edward 111, I think my chances of a royal, or even a gateway, ancestor are pretty remote.
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There are so many people I'd rather be related to in some way - say, Isaac Newton or Charles Darwin.
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In 1911, the Marquis of Ruvigny estimated from documented family trees that Edward’s living descendants numbered around 80,000 to 100,000. The number today, after four more generations of children, would be much greater.
I've seen estimates that put the number of Edward III's living descendants at around 4-5million, and some have suggested that virtually everyone (99%+) of predominantly English ancestry is descended from him in some way....
http://community.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/EdwardIIIDescent.php
Take it back to earlier kings, e.g. William I, and the probability is even higher.
...have to say it isn't something that interests me as a genealogist.
Edward III
Yes, both my Wife and I are part of the 4-5 Million that trace back to him and in our cases it is via John of Gaunt or in other words we are a pair of right Royal Bastards. ;-)
Not that it really matters its the last two hundred and fifty years that we are more interested in.
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I descend from Chadd Cockayne a Bedfordshire man who traces his lineage back to Eva Da Braose and Aoife MacMurrough, and further back King Vladimir.
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I descend from Chadd Cockayne a Bedfordshire man who traces his lineage back to Eva Da Braose and Aoife MacMurrough, and further back King Vladimir.
Was that Vlad the Impaler?
Romilly.
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No it was Vlad the Great c.958-1015.
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And the father of this Edward III was ? ditto Edward l & Edward lV ;D
Skoosh.
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I think there will be more descendants for whom the documentation isn't there than those for whom there is documentation.
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I wouldn't want to be descended from royalty
Tho was interested that Richard thirds relatives descendants of his sister could be traced thru DNA
I'm not sure if previous comments were implying that current royalty may not be able to trace their own lineage very far back in English history
Would be great if one of the present royals took a DNA test
What rumours and truths would that reveal.?
Will DNA be included in this documentary ?
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I would rather be connected to someone like William Wilberforce who was born in my home town, or someone from a modest background who made a difference to world. The Royals don't interest me. I I admire Rosa Parks, I had never heard of he until I saw a film about her. A famous explorer would be a good one too.
Carol
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I wouldn’t mind if I was descended from royalty.
As long as I can find out a bit about them I don’t care who my ancestors were.
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I wouldn't want to be descended from royalty
Tho was interested that Richard thirds relatives descendants of his sister could be traced thru DNA
I'm not sure if previous comments were implying that current royalty may not be able to trace their own lineage very far back in English history
Would be great if one of the present royals took a DNA test
What rumours and truths would that reveal.?
Will DNA be included in this documentary ?
I don't know if the Queen has had a DNA test, but Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,(gt nephew of Tzarina Alexandria) took a DNA test to compare with the DNA of skeletons found in Russia, which proved they were the skeletons of the Russian royal family. When a woman appeared and said she was Princes Anastasia who had escaped being murdered; Philips's DNA didn't match hers.
As for any branch of my tree being connected to royalty, I have no idea as I haven't done any dna testing but I do know that one of my farming ancestors in Huntingdonshire left a "Lyon Horse" to his oldest son, but whether it was a Bowes-Lyon filly I don't know ;D
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I wouldn't want to be descended from royalty
Tho was interested that Richard thirds relatives descendants of his sister could be traced thru DNA
I'm not sure if previous comments were implying that current royalty may not be able to trace their own lineage very far back in English history
Would be great if one of the present royals took a DNA test
What rumours and truths would that reveal.?
Will DNA be included in this documentary ?
I can't comment on what other's meant by their comments, but my point was that the often quoted line that Richard III was the last English King of England, which is based on the premise that Henry VI was Welsh through his Tudor descent (even though his claim to the throne was from the Plantagent Beaufort line), the Stewarts were Scottish (even though James I and VI's claim to the English throne can from his Tudor descent) and the Hanoverians were German (even though their claim to the UK throne depended on their descent from the Stewart line) is, put bluntly utter drivel. If the Tudors were Welsh, the Stewarts Scottish and the Hanoverians German, then by the same token the Plantagenet line were Norman and Angevin French, and even the Anglo-Saxons came from what would now be Germany.
The descent of the UK Royal Family is about the best documented genealogical line you are ever likely to find. Which is precisely why, from a purely genealogical viewpoint, that is, wanting to trace your ancestry as far back as you can with real confidence, establishing a so called Gateway ancestor into the Royal Family is pure gold.
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In theory, OH can trace her line back to Henry II.
The problem that I have, in doing the tracing, is just how accurate are the records on which those how have "proved" the line, actually are :o :o :o :o
I have that line as a separate tree, not connected to the one I am fairly sure of. :'(
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I hope ErinCasting will feedback to producers that there is a desire to have programs about descendants of the good ,brave ,clever ... ordinary folk .
The interest raised by this topic shows that a lot of us will probably watch the program whatever we think of royalty
Albu ..yes I thought your point was great .
Renu ..I'd forgotten about prince Phillip s DNA ...
As Albu said the royal paper trail is great ...tho doesn't allow for unknown illegitimacies which could turn some claims to thrown on their heads
Does anyone remember the program which traced "rightful King of England" to an ordinary bloke in Australia .can't remember which king they said couldn't have been conceived by his father because he was away at battle
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I wouldn’t mind if I was descended from royalty.
As long as I can find out a bit about them I don’t care who my ancestors were.
Me too. I'm always amused by the inverted snobbery that emerges whenever this subject comes up.
The descent of the UK Royal Family is about the best documented genealogical line you are ever likely to find. Which is precisely why, from a purely genealogical viewpoint, that is, wanting to trace your ancestry as far back as you can with real confidence, establishing a so called Gateway ancestor into the Royal Family is pure gold.
Indeed. Illegitimacies aside, but that applies to any genealogical line.
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I must say I enjoy finding royalty and nobility in my tree. I discovered that diplomat and poet Sir Henry Wotton is my 12th great grandfather through my ancestors from Kent. He married Jane Throckmorton whose sister Elizabeth married sir Walter Raleigh. The whole Throckmorton line is chocker block with lords, ladies and knights. Plus when you have royalty/nobility connections you come across so much more documentation and fascinating history. But equally fascinating also are my "ordinary" ancestors who were heroes in their own right through hardship and bravery. Not connected to any royalty, on my dad's side I recently discovered that the Canadian prime minster Justin Trudeau is my 5th cousin through our Sinclair connections in Caithness!
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It can be difficult but it can be achieved if you really keep plugging away, finding a descent from royalty is quite common, even though the "ah but many people cannot document it" is true, if you really did plug away it on lines that seemed to be more well off, it may be closer than you think, all you have to do is to verify the info for yourself. Monies were divided among the generations and titles only given to the elder surviving sons.
A peasant farmer may have been the son of a local weaver whose dad was a farmer, and his mother was the daughter of a yeoman whose father was a local merchant whose father was a physician and his dad was a knight and his mother was the daughter of a long line of politicians and knights going back to royalty.
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... or not, as it may be.
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... or not, as it may be.
How do you mean?
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Mine are pretty much common as muck on all sides, with names like JONES and BROWN to boot. Perhaps I am descended from royalty somewhere, but when John SMITH begets John SMITH with six other John SMITHs in the area, good luck. I think I've pretty much got back as far as I'm going to. I'm not sad to not find royalty; the only benefit there for me would be the existence of records!
I think if I had to choose an ancestor or family to follow in a programme it would be my 4th great Mark BRADY, an ordinary mariner who got into a drunken brawl on board ship, brained his crewmate with a handspike and spent 19 weeks in Newgate Prison before being tried at the Old Bailey. His grandson William ended up being born in the workhouse and worked his way up to being the undermanager of the local mines with several houses and a colour portrait of himself!
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Some chatters may recall how I became besotted with my ancestry, which was after a visit to what I thought would be a charlatan "fortune teller", but how accurately she described how and where my grandmother's older brother (unknown to me at the time) had died.
I was the usual beginner using what few local genealogy facilities there were at the time and when I felt surrounded by brick walls (e.g. which of the many "William"s was mine) I asked if the lady would try to give me a few clues about my ancestry.
She concentrated, gasped at something she saw (I instantly thought she's looking at a beautiful gown), and then she said:
"Are you a bleeder?
It raced through my mind that she either thought I was a bleeding Londoner or a royal haemophiliac. I quickly thought about my parents, sometimes dad looked like Prince Philip (probably the height, the hooter and blue eyes had something to do with it) and sometimes mam looked like the Queen mother (probably the heart shaped face, dark hair and cornflower blue eyes were responsible).
I discarded all the thoughts of grandeur and said "No, nobody in my family is a bleeder".
My avatar is my tiny maternal grandmother with my two oldest aunts and I'd traced her mother's (Lucy) Speight family back to Wath-Upon-Dearne, West Riding of Yorkshire In the Speight maternal line is Kezia a bride from Huntingdonshire and her maternal lines all lead back to a Wells/Welles family, which is a gateway to a European dynasty and claims to be connected to British royalty.
I've told my family if they want to mess about doing more research, they're welcome. I'm more concerned about where my dad's Scottish Donald Mckenzie bloodline leads to - and where on earth is his maternal line leading to? Was Tom Darling born, in the Leith area, Midlothian or just south of the Border.
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I would choose a non blood relatives
the Hallis family took my grandma in when she was a baby and brought her up tho they were in their 60.s he was in a workhouse age 6 & his wife had complicated ancestors and their sons went to South Africa
& the daughters were shirt makers
...maybe TV could find living descendants where ive failed
Tho I suspect their line has died out
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When we were researching my Wife’s line we found that she was descended from a at the time prosperous Lancastrian family and whilst following the line back we can across Margaret Stanley, and followed her line through generations back to Edward III.
We did the William the Conc line and back to Rollo.
Then we started to look sideways and quickly found there was No King who was English, the are and still are a Heinz 57 mixture.
Phillipa of Hainault b1313, (Wife of Edward III) if you look at her ancestry and every royal and noble line not just in England but the whole of Europe then they link back to her. Go back a couple of centuries, pick any spouse and do the same and yes, the inter marriage and marriages to solidify relationships were rife.
Go back further into pre Norman invasion days and the same thing happened. Alliances through marriages maintained the noble bloodlines and spread the gene pool.
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Coombs, I mean that similar stories occur in many families, and, sadly for those hoping for illustrious connections, often they are simply conjecture, and "besting up" a tale. Sorry it's taken me a few hours to get back to you on this. Very few are clearly documented, and able to trace such lineage. Certainly one slightly linked to mine proved to peter out in "same name / different family" muddle, where someone had cherry picked what sounded best, and then averred it was accurate - and sadly it was not.
TY
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Coombs, I mean that similar stories occur in many families, and, sadly for those hoping for illustrious connections, often they are simply conjecture, and "besting up" a tale. Sorry it's taken me a few hours to get back to you on this. Very few are clearly documented, and able to trace such lineage. Certainly one slightly linked to mine proved to peter out in "same name / different family" muddle, where someone had cherry picked what sounded best, and then averred it was accurate - and sadly it was not.
TY
Well I am sure most of us on here who have found a gateway ancestor have looked into it themselves to make sure, and verified the info though lots of hard, time consuming research checking wills, other documents, the lot. I would hate to be told it could all be conjecture if I managed to verify a direct link to a worthy family, and spent months if not years checking it for myself.
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You have to have a Tree on the Family Search Site to be able to run that Link.
I’ve been trying to work out how to upload a Tree from Ancestry to there, - does anyone know how to please?
Romilly.
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From Ancestry you can only download a GEDCOM file - this a specialised text file, and won't contain any images ;D
Save the file, and then you can then upload the GEDCOM file to FamilySearch.
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Many thanks, I’ll give it a go!
Romilly ;D
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I have to agree with others that I get more excited to find links to other historical figures than royalty. In my tree I have in my tree William Youatt the vet, John Gay the poet, and Olaf Rudbeck, scientist and professor who was also teacher and mentor to Carl Linnaeus. There are also tenuous links to Joshua Reynolds the painter and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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I have to agree with others that I get more excited to find links to other historical figures than royalty. In my tree I have in my tree William Youatt the vet, John Gay the poet, and Olaf Rudbeck, scientist and professor who was also teacher and mentor to Carl Linnaeus. There are also tenuous links to Joshua Reynolds the painter and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
I have the gateway Ancestor to the so called Nobility etc but long to find more links to family members who have achieved success without the aid of the Silver Spoon.
Alas so far I have only confirmed one family story about a family of Bradford School teachers.
My Great Great Aunt Mary was the Great Aunt to the world renown author, playwright and social commentator J B Priestley (An Inspector Calls).
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... and a reyt good Yorkshireman!
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Royalty schmoyalty .. I can trace my ancestry all the way back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule... i can’t help it..I was born sneering !
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Stuart
Background
The ancestral origins of the Stuart family are obscure—their probable ancestry is traced back to Alan FitzFlaad, a Breton who came over to Great Britain not long after the Norman conquest.[1] Alan had been the hereditary steward of the Bishop of Dol in the Duchy of Brittany;[2] Alan had a good relationship with Henry I of England who awarded him with lands in Shropshire.[2] The FitzAlan family quickly established themselves as a prominent Anglo-Norman noble house, with some of its members serving as High Sheriff of Shropshire.[2][3] It was the great-grandson of Alan named Walter FitzAlan who became the first hereditary High Steward of Scotland, while his brother William's family went on to become Earls of Arundel.
When the civil war in the Kingdom of England, known as The Anarchy, broke out between legitimist claimant Matilda, Lady of the English and her cousin who had usurped her, King Stephen, Walter had sided with Matilda.[4] Another supporter of Matilda was her uncle David I of Scotland from the House of Dunkeld.[4] After Matilda was pushed out of England into the County of Anjou, essentially failing in her legitimist attempt for the throne, many of her supporters in England fled also. It was then that Walter followed David up to the Kingdom of Scotland, where he was granted lands in Renfrewshire and the title for life of Lord High Steward.[4] The next monarch of Scotland, Malcolm IV, made the High Steward title a hereditary arrangement. While High Stewards, the family were based at Dundonald, South Ayrshire between the 12th and 13th centuries.
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Royalty schmoyalty .. I can trace my ancestry all the way back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule... i can’t help it..I was born sneering !
You are sneering at yourself.
Like it or not you will have so called Royal Blood in you.
We all have it, it is just that you have not found it yet.
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I'm as sure as anyone can be that there's not a drop of royal blood in me!
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No. :)
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I am connected to royalty via my Kentish ancestors sir Henry Wotton born 1568 a diplomat and poet (my 12 x great grandfather) he married a Jane Throckmorton whose sister Elizabeth married sir Walter Raleigh. Those 2 branches are connected to no end of nobility.
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Connected, yes. Descended, no.
My uncle married a Carrapiet. When I investigated her tree, I found a vast amount of information. I found her only cousin, who is also researching their family tree. She (the cousin) has original birth, death, marriage and baptism certificates. Plus diaries and appointment books.
The tree goes back to a daughter of a Stuart of Shambellie, who are a line of the Royal Stuarts of Scotland.
My cousins are descended, I am merely connected.
Regards
Chas
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A clear statement, Kiltpin, and as you so rightly say, "connected" is far from "descended". I have found connections via marriages with many interesting people, some well-known, some notorious, but I am NOT descended from any of them!
And I also remain a resolute commoner. No delusions of Royalty.
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Lots have found descent from royalty and gentry (providing there was no roll in the hay with the milkman somewhere on the line inbetween the 1800s and back to the 1400s/1300s or whenever the royal descent starts). ;D Beware Danny Dyer. ;D ;D. You always have to allow for that small element of possibility with genealogy. I have a line of descent back to John Hastings, 1st baron Hastings, as his family were Irish and French royalty.
I also have quite a few 1500s and early 1600s ancestors who were merchants, some aldermen and vicars. An ancestor from Suffolk wed in Colchester in 1550, his wife was from near Boston, Lincs, and as they left wills I was able to pin down their origin.
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I'm as sure as anyone can be that there's not a drop of royal blood in me!
Can anyone be sure who the father was prior to DNA?
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/09/jus-primae-noctis-fact-fiction/
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Folk seem uncommonly pleased to have alleged ancestors who apparently never did any work. >:(
Skoosh.
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Nae posh folk in my ancestry.
Only hard working peasants both Scottish and Irish. Wie maybe an English connection to my unknown grandfather who gave his life for King and Country in WW1.
Take care
Dorrie
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Hello..
I found a connection last year and traced it back through 20th generations very big tree so cant post... the main one being my wife's 13th Great Grandmother Isabel Campbell of Loudon born 1568.. great granddaughter of James IV... via Lady Margaret Stewart, Lady Gordon his daughter by Margaret Drummond of Stobshall..
Mostly through Family Search Tree I made... then mostly historical sites..and www.clanmacfarlanegenealogy.info but hard to prove as its only a tentative link via her 9th Great Grandparents Elizabeth Wallace 1689-1738 and William Wallace 1677-1721 Married Marriage on 26th September 1709 Glasgow, Lanarkshire Parish 644/1 Ref 240 145..
My wife doesn't believe me though but Daughter did get of kick out of being possibly related to Mary Queen of Scots.. ..
Regards
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Bigger tree.. screen capture..
Previous one at bottom left..
Regards
Mark W
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From an earlier reply:
In 1911, the Marquis of Ruvigny estimated from documented family trees that Edward’s living descendants numbered around 80,000 to 100,000. The number today, after four more generations of children, would be much greater.
and
I've seen estimates that put the number of Edward III's living descendants at around 4-5million, and some have suggested that virtually everyone (99%+) of predominantly English ancestry is descended from him in some way....
http://community.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/EdwardIIIDescent.php
Take it back to earlier kings, e.g. William I, and the probability is even higher.
...have to say it isn't something that interests me as a genealogist.
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And who was Edward IIIs faither? they were as inbred as chinchilla rabbits! ;D
Skoosh.
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Dorrie
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England's greatest king hid inside a collapsed tent at the Battle of Stanhope Park when the Scots over-ran their camp, only a canvas sheet saved all this multiplicity of descendants from ever being born! ;D
Skoosh.
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A shame some people here seem to have an agenda. These folks existed whether you like it or not, and some people are interested in tracing their connections. I don't see the point of posting in this thread if you aren't, just to sneer.
Personally I am interested in anyone connected to my family, whether they be the idle rich (many of whom probably worked quite hard in running their estates) or the so-called hard-working poor (some of whom were certainly shiftless and a fair few criminal).
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Madonna is apparently distantly descended from nobility through her French ancestors on her mothers side. I think they connect to Danny Dyer's ancestry, thus making them distant cousins. "Cousin Dont Preach" Madonna should sing to Danny.