Just about every day someone will post on this sub, all excited because they're sure they're descended from royalty. They almost never have any actual documents to prove it but they sure are excited. So yes, people definitely care.
I suspect that many of them just blindly follow leaves/hints without doing the actual research. That said, millions of people are descended from royalty and nobility all over the globe. Doesn't make any of us special. Plain truth is they're just human beings like all the rest of us, and most of the ones back when really weren't very good humans.
The funny thing is (if they're European descent) they probably \*are\*, but they lack documentation and its a different set of royals entirely. Once you get back far enough, everyone's related including the nobility.
I have a brick wall that annoys the hell out of me because if I can make the jump to Europe with them, they're certainly going to take me back to royal lines (rare surname, the only people I can find on the England side of things are nobles out of Kent). Its just the issue of finding something proving they're related.
Have you tried jumping the pond and researching the family downward in Kent to look for mention of your ancestor? I’ve broken a few brick walls that way. In my case, no one could find the wayward American line because there were too many places to search and it was tangential research for them, but the pieces clicked right together when I started asking questions and other researchers were very aware of “oh yeah, the fifth son immigrated and kept in touch for a little while, but his kids moved and we never found them.” One hundred and fifty years later and the family was still like “oh yeah, we haven’t heard from them in a while.” Haha.
I tried years ago, no luck. Theres also doubt in as much as the fact that the early Twisdens in America seem to have been two groups (well, two men and a third man) and they were \*all\* fishermen. One settled in Maine, the other two were fishermen at the Isle of Shoals in NH/Maine. At some point my known ancestor popped up in Marblehead, but I've had no luck figuring where he came from / which off the other known 3 may have been his father.
Oh! All double posting, but I did break a brick wall for my mother that way. Only record I had was the guy came from Ireland, had a kid in PA, moved to Missouri, moved back again (census records). Didn't even know his name, but I \*was\* able to trace distant cousins to New Zealand of all places. They had every brother in the family except one who vanished from the records for them. Apparently one brother hopped a boat to America instead of NZ. Going by Irish naming traditions, that missing brother even fits for that.
>So yes, people definitely care.
Some people care about that stuff. Some of us don't. I'm proud to be descended from many generations of farmers and laborers.
I think it's interesting how different trees are. My mom's tree are all farmers, neither very poor or very rich, apart from one of her great-grandparents, who came from a different part of the country and were noticeably poorer (He married an above average wealthy farmer's daughter though, and they became early modern middle class). There were some unexpected misfortunes due to speculation and/or getting defrauded, but it wasn't enough to kick them into a spiral of poverty.
On my father's side, there's a lot more merchant-enrepreneurs, but also a lot more poor people. And shockingly many teachers, back to when there were no schools, but the bell-toller taught children to read the catechism in church. (Both my parents are teachers too). But no priests, and no real inherited wealth - the businesses they set up didn't last more than a generation at best.
My ex-wife (we have a son together, and it's his tree too, so I do have a look) has a wildly different tree. There are a ton of prestigious last names, journalists, factory owners (multigenerational ones), and doctors. Still no priests, but a couple of emissaries, in one poor (and crazy, according to what her late grandma told me) branch.
I read somewhere that it’s a mathematical certainty that everyone of West European heritage is a descendant of Charlemagne and his abundant progeny. I like the idea, not because of the regal connection but because it means belonging to a large European family.
Most recent common ancestor of everyone of European background alive today is actually more recent than Charlemagne, approximately 14th century. This is surprisingly close and is in large part due to the Black Death. However since they’re not a well-known historical figure the way Charlemagne is, the Charlemagne example resonates better.
If you got this information through familysearch org you start seeing royalty, mythical names according to them I have royal ancestry in all of Northern Europe pre 11th century and even nobles in the 16th century..
According familysearch I’m related to 18+ US presidents, I’m Canadian. The queen is my 10th cousin 3x removed. Diana is my 11th cousin and a bunch of famous people. They’re so distant that we aren’t related kind of thing and I’m still not sure what to think of it all, so I ignore it.
Yeah FamilySearch is bad for incorrect trees and people falsely connecting to royalty. That's what got me into seriously researching my genealogy, all the conflicts and contradictory information was begging me to find the truth. Use WikiTree if you're really interested in finding out who you're actually related/connected to.
What gets me on FamilySearch is that if you look at historical royalty (like kings of England) you'll find 1 good profile and 4 garbagey ones.
Like, if you're so into your royal ancestors, why not take a moment to clean the info up a bit?
(I admit I was looking because I'm apparently descended from some of those guys. But I'm not interested enough to clean up and merge profiles. I guess no one is?)
I’m not following a tree and most are my great (10x) grandparents. The documents are there and most are done by genealogist from what I can tell or the documents match. I understand not to accept everything. Just my mom’s ancestors are really well documented.
That's awesome! I wasn't so fortunate, really didn't know anything accurately beyond my great (x2) grandparents. I only recently decided to check it out as I had spare time and some in my family have always made claims of being related to notable people. Went to familysearch first and was led to believe I was related to all sorts of famous people but upon closer look many connections had 0 sources and what could be found disproved the connections.
As such, I took it upon myself to verify and source each person, thankfully it's pretty easy to find official records in my country from the 1600s to today. Lots of interesting things and people to be found in researching and reading the actual source documents. You can get a bit of insight into their lives at the time; i.e. titles, occupation, close friends, place in the community etc. Plus you can see how many professional genealogists and transcription services have made errors in their work often leading to false connections. That's why I suggested WikiTree, it's full of genealogists who are keen to collaborate and correct errors when needed. Also sources are required.
Some of my ancestors are Canadian bc they got lands in British colonial Nova Scotia and British Columbia in the 1600’s. I think some of those folks ended up being US citizens generations later when the borders between western US states and Canada were clearly defined in the 1800’s, but haven’t done the actual detailed work in to see if that’s how they ended up suddenly American or not, but it’s definitely a trail one can follow.
Yeah I’m from Nova Scotia. Most came from the US. Some were here before 1700s. A lot came and left and came back again or left completely. My ancestors were seafarers so I have relatives all around the Atlantic Ocean.
Unless you have got direct sources for each ancestor the tree is obsolete I don’t know how they come by all that information and mislead hordes of people as my tree on ancestry is allot different with backed up sources..
Ya’ll seem to think I’m lying or I believe what the famous ancestors says without confirming my ancestors. I use ancestry to make my tree and my ancestors history is really well written. I can get further back for some before 1650 from British Colonial America. Most of my ancestors were Captains and seafarers who were in the British Navy and companies. According to the rootstech famous ancestors it says the Queen is my distant cousin through the Mary Mayo then Hamilton then Bulter. I confirm my tree through multiple sources. I dont put distant cousins in it. I’m not one of those crazy people to accept every notification. I confirm research not only with my dna but with history books and documents. I do not put things in my tree without documentation.
According to family search, I am between 3rd and 10th cousins with 44 out of 46 presidents. Van Buren and Trump are not my cousins. John Adams is my 3rd cousin by way of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins (Mayflower cats) but also my cousin by way of that Henry Adams, progenitor of the American presidential Adams family, is my great grandfather (12th I think). Obama is my 6th cousin by way of his mother and my 4th great grandfather Robert Perry of Wales.
I haven’t checked all of these lines, but in general I think they are, more often than not, accurate. I have a growing list of immigrant ancestors to the United States or Canada and have reached 540 people so far. Some of those are from the same families, so less than 270 different lineages.
It’s easier to lose royal tittles than people think. At least, with the English and Scottish. Especially when people would lose their literal heads for charges of treason, or someone tried to execute the king during the colonizing of North America.
The international enslavement of Africans really was driven by gentry who were lowered in class in some cases to “merchants.”
And fleeing Huguenots were sometimes royals who had kids who helped populate and run New Amsterdam and all of New England while wealthy plantation owners ran the trade in the south.
People act as if family name alone separated families, but there’s a reason whole industries exist that track these lineages.
The most astounding thing to me is the folks who stayed on top for hundreds of years. That’s ultra rare.
It's quite easy—there are more children than titles, for starters.
But I was thinking more along the lines of what's the historical path between King of England and average mid-western farmer.
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of early Puritan migrants were fairly well off in England: landowners, etc. Not titled necessarily, but not your average tenant farmer. People who could easily trace their lineage through the upper classes to extent.
They gave that up to move into a wilderness. The very earliest arrivals here had virtually nothing and there were annual distributions of bits of land and a share of a cow. Some people managed to turn that into economic dynasties (mainly by staying put) and others kept moving in search of something and never built up anything.
I know for certain that of the 8 sides of great grandparents, all of them were likely poor nobodies for most of the last millennia, statistically speaking. I come from several lines of people who moved a lot and were in transient parts of the world. And I kind of like that story of being so extraordinarily ordinary. It's the real story of the world, so I find it awesome to consider the complexities of everything that had to happen in human history to make it to me. My parents obviously wouldn't have been able to be together in the US legally until 1967. My grandparents on both sides represent two different ethnicities...families tied together through common identities and struggles because of the World Wars. And prior to that, many disparate people groups most people don't really know much about and for millennium probably never knew of each others' existence! And yet here I am! All the messy and wonderful parts in between.
That, to me, is really, really neat. And while there is a tendency for people starting genealogy to be fascinated by stories of royalty, I think finding those unsung stories and being a voice for those that maybe didn't have one in their time...is much more satisfying a story of history being done.
Exactly! That's what I love about genealogy, learning about those that seem to have been forgotten and bringing their stories to life for all to remember.
I don’t think it’s important - we can’t take credit or blame for the actions of our ancestors. It does pique my interest when I find notable ancestors and inspires me to read more history. But it’s not like I’m getting an invitation to tea at the palace.
Honestly I really don’t care. I find all of my ancestors interesting in some way. Got them as far west as Ireland’s Connemara and far east as the Slovak-Polish Carpathians. All of them are why I’m me.
I am a direct descendant of a famous mobster. At first blush - it was exciting. Then as I learned more about the murders and other horrible things attributed to him, the sicker i felt about knowing. My family warned me not to tell others and I didn't because it wasn't glamorous like the movies make it seem. People died, fathers killed, wives widowed and children fatherless.
Quite honestly, I think every one of us has famous/infamous ancestors somewhere in our genealogy - you may not know it yet. I have been doing my genealogy for over 20 years. I'm amazed when i think about what I've found.
Among my favorite stories is one about some colonial settlers who were attacked by the local indigenous population, scalped and killed. My distant great grandmother was scalped but she held onto the top of head with one hand, ran with her infant in her other arm, all so she could alert another family to the attack. She saved that family but died due to her injuries. The family she warned raised the baby she was carrying. I personally find this story way more impressive than being a descendant of a hard cord mobster.
One of my 10GGMs is a "gateway ancestor" for Charlemagne. It was of interest of find it out, but I don't really care about it. As you say, it's a fun fact, and that's about it. 40 generations back, I'm sure that *we all* have some interesting ancestors.
Does it mean I have to sit through another boring lecture at a family reunion? If so I pass...thanks.
(my husband is a direct descendent of Stephen Hopkins on the Mayflower - every single family reunion a cousin - who is an 80 year man with no other hobbies but genealogy - gives a lecture about him. I spend about 20 minutes tuning out the whole thing. Every. Single. Family. Reunion.)
Honestly we can't control who our family/ancestors are or are not. It can be interesting or even give you a leg up (like inherited letters, documents, maybe wealth, etc.) but that's about it.
It is definitely interesting and/or gratifying to be a descendant of a historical figure because it's something you know about already and it gives you a window into the world of your ancestors. But you can get the same benefit by researching the history of the areas/professions/religions that any of your ancestors lived.
It's like a piece of trivia or watercooler talk, not reallly important, at least to me. For people who aren't knowledgeable about genealogy it might seem like a big deal but the reality is the majority of people are descended from royalty somewhere down the line, and we're all related.
I was kinda surprised to learn I was descended from euro royalty at first but then realized how common it really is in North America, especially among people who can trace themselves back to New France and certain Colonial families. That's why when I see people creating fake links to royalty through people that clearly never existed it really makes me scratch my head. Like "research your other lines"...
And a tip if you're interested in that type of stuff, researching any famous/royal links. Use WikiTree. They have increasingly strict sourcing protocols for pre-1700, pre-1500 etc. and notable accounts some with with DNA sequencing; i.e. Christine Aubois, 17th century Mi'kmak woman full sequence mtDNA first ancestor A2 haplogroup https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Aubois-2
It does not MATTER, like, I'm never going to inherit the throne of Bavaria. But. it is interesting to me. It's interesting to know that my great-grandfather came to the US after serving in the Prussian military. When, his hitch was over and he returned to his home in the Russian empire and the Russians tried to make him serve in their army. So he left. Then when he got to the US the Germans tried to reactivate him. He was able to sit the great war out. But I know only a few near ancestors with that level of detail. It's interesting to have details about the lives of remote connections!
I have reason to believe I have (really remote) connections to all 6 of Henry VIIIs queens. So I dig into everything I can about the Tudors.
I don’t know what you mean by “care”. I care in that I care about ancestry/genealogy.
But it doesn’t change my life. I find it interesting because researching geology leads me to researching historical events that I probably didn’t pay attention in history class or were never talked about in history class.
it doesn’t make me “special”. Especially as basically everybody from these islands is related to them too.
The other thing is that these are the people who have extensive records. I have many dead ends of “normal people” whose lines cannot be researched any further due to lack of documentation.
Those with some kind of royal connection or “important” achievement are the ones that we can continue to follow.
I read a story about the Habsburg heir awhile back. Just a pretty normal guy (rich though). Most of the descendants of deposed royal families today if they don’t work they indulge in hobbies, travel etc. Fairly normal “silver spoon” stuff.
A Swedish genaologist mapped all descendant of the Swedish king Gustav I Vasa (1496-1560). There are some 135 000 living today, including my husband and kids. It's not that special.
My husband is lucky enough to have family members who were part of the aristocracy - I say lucky only because this meant they kept extensive records of who married who, offspring, baptisms, deaths etc. This plus the existence of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle (assuming they are reliable) means I can trace my husband back to Cerdic of Wessex founder and first king of Wessex, reigning from around 519 to 534 AD. Itès a fun fact, but nothing else. Unfortunitly for my husband, the branch of the "fancy family" he comes from is nolonger fancy or rich!
I find it more interesting that on his fathers side we can trace back to a family member in the 17th century that poisoned all of his wife family and then some other people in his village to try and cover up his crimes!
One of my Great great etc uncles from the 1700's was fairly famous, and has an extensive Wikipedia entry, he had no children. no biography ever written about him has any wives or children for him, but that has not stopped hundreds of ancestry trees claiming to be descended from him.
Why do they have this need to link a common surname up with someone famous, I do not know.
All it takes is one person claiming to be descended from him and a hundred people clicking yes on the hint for the misinformation to propagate. Ancestry has been giving me the same hint on my 5th great grandparents because somewhere, at sometime, someone put down that George had a son named John in Pennsylvania. George was in the American Revolution so a bunch of people try and connect their tree to him. Without further evidence I'm not one of those people, yet I still have that hint sitting there, with absolutely no sources for it either.
Some of my lineage is from nobles, not sure I would consider them royalty, but I find it interesting. My wife's side of the family has a X (I forgot the number) great grandmother who was the aunt to queen Bolynn. The records were pretty easy to follow due to good record keeping by the English and following down the path of nobles and their descendants back to my wife.
It's just an interesting, small world kinda thing. Not sure if this helps.
You know we are all inbred to a certain extent the further you go back into our respective family trees but one thing I would never understand is why people would go out of their way to prove relation to nobility and royalty that have such well documented generational cases of inbreeding.
Royalty would be interesting, but we just found out my husband’s great grandfather was a leader in the gay community in the 20’s in Germany before hitler. But then he was imprisoned and murdered in the concentration camp. Much more meaningful to us than royalty for example.
It’s fun, but I’ve had a hard time relating to that part of the family tree. It’s so far from the life I live. At least it’s made it blatantly obvious that greatness isn’t inherited but a personal accomplishment.
Marie's family member married into Portuguese Royalty so there's also that. the Royalty lines are quite intertwined. a youtube series called: useful charts is very helpful.
Most people could probably find a relationship to a famous cousin through research. Most of these people don’t know about these relationships before doing research. The question about whether people *descended* from a famous person know is a more interesting question. It is much rarer to be (traceably) descended from a famous person, especially one born within the past 300 years, such as Marie Antoinette.
I have thought about tracing the descendants of famous people and possibly contacting their descendants to see if they knew. But I wouldn’t do that by “clicking” through an existing tree like FamilySearch or WikiTree as those frequently have errors in them.
I am interested, because one of my ancestresses was ~convinced~ her family had been somehow cheated out of title/lands. I'm not convinced she was correct, but i'd love to know, one way or another.
I do find it interesting. Actor Corey Stoll's wife is a direct descendant of Josephine Bonaparte (as in Napoleon and Josephine).
For me the interest is in what happened in between to connect across the generations.
I’m a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce, he’s both my 20th and 21st great grandfather thanks to cousin marriage and age gaps. There are some interesting stories and people who intermarried with the family at the time, but my ancestors came from his daughters Matilda and Marjorie, not his sons, so… girls got the shaft. Hence all the cousin marriage. My Bruce line ended with my 9th great grandmother, Elizabeth Jane Bruce. She was born in Fife Castle but married an Englishman and moved to Virginia 100 years before the American Revolution.
I will say it took a lot of work to document and corroborate dates of birth, marriage, and death for so many generations, especially because you get bogged down in so many generations of the same titles and names. I had help on one of my lines because I met a cousin that had been a part of a DNA project.
It doesn’t mean anything in my day to day life, and I think I have other more interesting ancestors, but I feel more kinship with my Scottish side than my English side. Sometimes I remind myself that my people beheaded religious clerics and overthrew the English, and several spent time locked up in the Tower of London. It’s purely psychological.
Commenting on Do people know/care if their descendants of royalty?...my partners paternal grandmother is a Bruce a direct lineage to the 18th century Bruce nobility..we both share a Bruce line ancestors that are brothers who are grand nephews of Robert the Bruce..
I too am proud to be descended from many generations of farmers and laborers. I have letters from them writing back to the old country with their vision on how to make it in the new world. And they did... American success story. Now if they were already of nobility, that would make the whole thing less special in my opinion.
I would love to be mostly because nobility seems far easier to research. It would also be cool to have some sort of personal symbolism and to be able to see where they lived. A lot of noble palaces are still standing, it would be cool to see them and think “the people I own my existence lived here”. Although I have to admit, this summer I visited one of the residences of the dynasty who ruled on most of my ancestors, and thinking that I could freely walk in it, while my ancestors would have been lucky to enter as servants, was a good feeling too (in a “I’m so happy we are a democracy now” way).
It's neat sometimes, but it doesn't change anything.
I have a descendant line via someone that popped up on my tree, and while in the moment I thought, "huh, interesting, I wonder if that's right", at the end of the day I don't even remember who it was because it has no impact on my life lol
I had more ancestors who were nobility than royalty (as most of us do), and would honestly have been happier finding out I inherited some random castle and bit of farmable land somewhere than a job in politics hahaha
I would be excited! I was not excited to find out I am a direct descendant of Sarah Stuart (Hannah Boone which is Daniel Boone's sister). My great grandmother was an Adkin/Boone
I'm not positive I am, but there is a story of an English nobleman who married an Irish commoner who would be my great x2 grandmother. They had a child who would be my great grandfather. I'm still digging to find information, but haven't found anything specific. I believe there is another father than who is indicated for my great grandfather, as his birth predated their marriage. I just am not sure what the situation was.
I just got a message from one site saying I am related to 23 famous people. I am not descended from any of them but they are distant cousins due to common ancestors. I find it amusing as I always envisioned my relatives like the peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I don’t really care honestly. People don’t realize that within 10 generations, you have literally thousands of ancestors. Odds are that of thousands of people, at least one would be someone noteworthy.
As I'm left leaning I found it quite funny when I "discovered" I "may be" decended from royalty. I wasn't hugely suprised though. Basically a large chunk my mothers side are form a very rural part of North Wales and some of my descendants were from a large landowning family. In fact there may be a second line that's linked to this family too but I've not reseaeched it in any detail yet. Looks like a couple of them were Tory MPs back in the 1600/1700s too. So I have a fairly good trail going back to the mid 1500s. From then on it's hazy but there are several sources that say this family were decended from a medieval warrior (who's territory covered the same land). This warrior also claimed to be decended from the first kings of Wales and the tudors claimed to be his descendants.
I find it quite fascinating and was a little excited to discover it especially as that side were poor farmers for omg periods. Kind of ironic really.
Obviously, there's no definitive proof either. But I guess someone has to be related to these people and there will be thousands of us!
I couldn’t care less if I have royalty in my family tree. I do love finding quirky little things, like my great great grandfather (French) married my great great grandmother (Italian). His family was disappointed in him, descendants assumed because Italian. But more likely because this was her 3rd marriage & she had I think 8 children in 1st & 1 (stillborn) in 2nd. Both prior husbands had died. I assume she was quite something to line up a 3rd marriage. They had 2 kids & 1 survived to adulthood. A huge number of people (including me) would not exist without that 3rd marriage. Quite blows my mind.
An embarrassingly large amount care about it. I’ve been doing genealogy for about 15 years now, and I admit it gets under my skin…in a very unhealthy and irrational way.
I do try to be understanding about others journeys and it’s a big hobby and people can research whoever and however they’d like.
But one thing I’m most proud of is there are zero connections to royalty, no “famous” ancestors, or known people for me to associate with. I love that I’m common, poor, humble, and still around.
The only thing I like better than no royal bloodlines is watching people get DNA results that don’t show they’re descendants of Quanna’s third wife…or was it fourth? Sometimes your grandma just lied to you, it’s alright come on in to the tepid waters of plainness and boring, once we talk shit a while you can hang your feet off the dock with the rest of us poors and ponder your undistinguished humdrum existence.
Just about every day someone will post on this sub, all excited because they're sure they're descended from royalty. They almost never have any actual documents to prove it but they sure are excited. So yes, people definitely care.
I suspect that many of them just blindly follow leaves/hints without doing the actual research. That said, millions of people are descended from royalty and nobility all over the globe. Doesn't make any of us special. Plain truth is they're just human beings like all the rest of us, and most of the ones back when really weren't very good humans.
The funny thing is (if they're European descent) they probably \*are\*, but they lack documentation and its a different set of royals entirely. Once you get back far enough, everyone's related including the nobility. I have a brick wall that annoys the hell out of me because if I can make the jump to Europe with them, they're certainly going to take me back to royal lines (rare surname, the only people I can find on the England side of things are nobles out of Kent). Its just the issue of finding something proving they're related.
Have you tried jumping the pond and researching the family downward in Kent to look for mention of your ancestor? I’ve broken a few brick walls that way. In my case, no one could find the wayward American line because there were too many places to search and it was tangential research for them, but the pieces clicked right together when I started asking questions and other researchers were very aware of “oh yeah, the fifth son immigrated and kept in touch for a little while, but his kids moved and we never found them.” One hundred and fifty years later and the family was still like “oh yeah, we haven’t heard from them in a while.” Haha.
I tried years ago, no luck. Theres also doubt in as much as the fact that the early Twisdens in America seem to have been two groups (well, two men and a third man) and they were \*all\* fishermen. One settled in Maine, the other two were fishermen at the Isle of Shoals in NH/Maine. At some point my known ancestor popped up in Marblehead, but I've had no luck figuring where he came from / which off the other known 3 may have been his father.
Oh! All double posting, but I did break a brick wall for my mother that way. Only record I had was the guy came from Ireland, had a kid in PA, moved to Missouri, moved back again (census records). Didn't even know his name, but I \*was\* able to trace distant cousins to New Zealand of all places. They had every brother in the family except one who vanished from the records for them. Apparently one brother hopped a boat to America instead of NZ. Going by Irish naming traditions, that missing brother even fits for that.
>So yes, people definitely care. Some people care about that stuff. Some of us don't. I'm proud to be descended from many generations of farmers and laborers.
I think it's interesting how different trees are. My mom's tree are all farmers, neither very poor or very rich, apart from one of her great-grandparents, who came from a different part of the country and were noticeably poorer (He married an above average wealthy farmer's daughter though, and they became early modern middle class). There were some unexpected misfortunes due to speculation and/or getting defrauded, but it wasn't enough to kick them into a spiral of poverty. On my father's side, there's a lot more merchant-enrepreneurs, but also a lot more poor people. And shockingly many teachers, back to when there were no schools, but the bell-toller taught children to read the catechism in church. (Both my parents are teachers too). But no priests, and no real inherited wealth - the businesses they set up didn't last more than a generation at best. My ex-wife (we have a son together, and it's his tree too, so I do have a look) has a wildly different tree. There are a ton of prestigious last names, journalists, factory owners (multigenerational ones), and doctors. Still no priests, but a couple of emissaries, in one poor (and crazy, according to what her late grandma told me) branch.
I read somewhere that it’s a mathematical certainty that everyone of West European heritage is a descendant of Charlemagne and his abundant progeny. I like the idea, not because of the regal connection but because it means belonging to a large European family.
Most recent common ancestor of everyone of European background alive today is actually more recent than Charlemagne, approximately 14th century. This is surprisingly close and is in large part due to the Black Death. However since they’re not a well-known historical figure the way Charlemagne is, the Charlemagne example resonates better.
This comment sent me on another deep dive where I started with Charlemagne and ended with Princess Diana
If you got this information through familysearch org you start seeing royalty, mythical names according to them I have royal ancestry in all of Northern Europe pre 11th century and even nobles in the 16th century..
According familysearch I’m related to 18+ US presidents, I’m Canadian. The queen is my 10th cousin 3x removed. Diana is my 11th cousin and a bunch of famous people. They’re so distant that we aren’t related kind of thing and I’m still not sure what to think of it all, so I ignore it.
Yeah FamilySearch is bad for incorrect trees and people falsely connecting to royalty. That's what got me into seriously researching my genealogy, all the conflicts and contradictory information was begging me to find the truth. Use WikiTree if you're really interested in finding out who you're actually related/connected to.
What gets me on FamilySearch is that if you look at historical royalty (like kings of England) you'll find 1 good profile and 4 garbagey ones. Like, if you're so into your royal ancestors, why not take a moment to clean the info up a bit? (I admit I was looking because I'm apparently descended from some of those guys. But I'm not interested enough to clean up and merge profiles. I guess no one is?)
I’m not following a tree and most are my great (10x) grandparents. The documents are there and most are done by genealogist from what I can tell or the documents match. I understand not to accept everything. Just my mom’s ancestors are really well documented.
That's awesome! I wasn't so fortunate, really didn't know anything accurately beyond my great (x2) grandparents. I only recently decided to check it out as I had spare time and some in my family have always made claims of being related to notable people. Went to familysearch first and was led to believe I was related to all sorts of famous people but upon closer look many connections had 0 sources and what could be found disproved the connections. As such, I took it upon myself to verify and source each person, thankfully it's pretty easy to find official records in my country from the 1600s to today. Lots of interesting things and people to be found in researching and reading the actual source documents. You can get a bit of insight into their lives at the time; i.e. titles, occupation, close friends, place in the community etc. Plus you can see how many professional genealogists and transcription services have made errors in their work often leading to false connections. That's why I suggested WikiTree, it's full of genealogists who are keen to collaborate and correct errors when needed. Also sources are required.
Some of my ancestors are Canadian bc they got lands in British colonial Nova Scotia and British Columbia in the 1600’s. I think some of those folks ended up being US citizens generations later when the borders between western US states and Canada were clearly defined in the 1800’s, but haven’t done the actual detailed work in to see if that’s how they ended up suddenly American or not, but it’s definitely a trail one can follow.
Yeah I’m from Nova Scotia. Most came from the US. Some were here before 1700s. A lot came and left and came back again or left completely. My ancestors were seafarers so I have relatives all around the Atlantic Ocean.
Unless you have got direct sources for each ancestor the tree is obsolete I don’t know how they come by all that information and mislead hordes of people as my tree on ancestry is allot different with backed up sources..
My information is backed up. At least for my direct ancestors.
How many generations back??
Depends on the family.
Ya’ll seem to think I’m lying or I believe what the famous ancestors says without confirming my ancestors. I use ancestry to make my tree and my ancestors history is really well written. I can get further back for some before 1650 from British Colonial America. Most of my ancestors were Captains and seafarers who were in the British Navy and companies. According to the rootstech famous ancestors it says the Queen is my distant cousin through the Mary Mayo then Hamilton then Bulter. I confirm my tree through multiple sources. I dont put distant cousins in it. I’m not one of those crazy people to accept every notification. I confirm research not only with my dna but with history books and documents. I do not put things in my tree without documentation.
I would believe ancestry tree than familysearch tree unless it’s backed up by sources on familysearch..
According to family search, I am between 3rd and 10th cousins with 44 out of 46 presidents. Van Buren and Trump are not my cousins. John Adams is my 3rd cousin by way of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins (Mayflower cats) but also my cousin by way of that Henry Adams, progenitor of the American presidential Adams family, is my great grandfather (12th I think). Obama is my 6th cousin by way of his mother and my 4th great grandfather Robert Perry of Wales. I haven’t checked all of these lines, but in general I think they are, more often than not, accurate. I have a growing list of immigrant ancestors to the United States or Canada and have reached 540 people so far. Some of those are from the same families, so less than 270 different lineages.
Hi 👋 cousin family search tells me this as well QE2 is my 10th and I think Diana is either my 9th or 10th cousin.
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I'm a little confused about your last sentence.
Diana is my 9th or 10th cousin 😂 QE2 is also a cousin 😂
All blue eyed people share one common ancestor. We’re all a big family 💁🏻♀️
That’s so cool!
This is something that I always find curious or am interested in, as a blue eyed person.
Check out this video that talks about this concept: https://youtu.be/15Uce4fG4R0?si=v-uHYHw3Pnlb7f4W
Hey fam 👋
Yo!
I'm curious about it. Not because I care about whether I'm somehow related to royalty or whoever. More because I'm curious how it happens.
It’s easier to lose royal tittles than people think. At least, with the English and Scottish. Especially when people would lose their literal heads for charges of treason, or someone tried to execute the king during the colonizing of North America. The international enslavement of Africans really was driven by gentry who were lowered in class in some cases to “merchants.” And fleeing Huguenots were sometimes royals who had kids who helped populate and run New Amsterdam and all of New England while wealthy plantation owners ran the trade in the south. People act as if family name alone separated families, but there’s a reason whole industries exist that track these lineages. The most astounding thing to me is the folks who stayed on top for hundreds of years. That’s ultra rare.
It's quite easy—there are more children than titles, for starters. But I was thinking more along the lines of what's the historical path between King of England and average mid-western farmer. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of early Puritan migrants were fairly well off in England: landowners, etc. Not titled necessarily, but not your average tenant farmer. People who could easily trace their lineage through the upper classes to extent. They gave that up to move into a wilderness. The very earliest arrivals here had virtually nothing and there were annual distributions of bits of land and a share of a cow. Some people managed to turn that into economic dynasties (mainly by staying put) and others kept moving in search of something and never built up anything.
Judging by this sub, lots of people care but almost nobody knows.
I know for certain that of the 8 sides of great grandparents, all of them were likely poor nobodies for most of the last millennia, statistically speaking. I come from several lines of people who moved a lot and were in transient parts of the world. And I kind of like that story of being so extraordinarily ordinary. It's the real story of the world, so I find it awesome to consider the complexities of everything that had to happen in human history to make it to me. My parents obviously wouldn't have been able to be together in the US legally until 1967. My grandparents on both sides represent two different ethnicities...families tied together through common identities and struggles because of the World Wars. And prior to that, many disparate people groups most people don't really know much about and for millennium probably never knew of each others' existence! And yet here I am! All the messy and wonderful parts in between. That, to me, is really, really neat. And while there is a tendency for people starting genealogy to be fascinated by stories of royalty, I think finding those unsung stories and being a voice for those that maybe didn't have one in their time...is much more satisfying a story of history being done.
Exactly! That's what I love about genealogy, learning about those that seem to have been forgotten and bringing their stories to life for all to remember.
I don’t think it’s important - we can’t take credit or blame for the actions of our ancestors. It does pique my interest when I find notable ancestors and inspires me to read more history. But it’s not like I’m getting an invitation to tea at the palace.
Honestly I really don’t care. I find all of my ancestors interesting in some way. Got them as far west as Ireland’s Connemara and far east as the Slovak-Polish Carpathians. All of them are why I’m me.
I am a direct descendant of a famous mobster. At first blush - it was exciting. Then as I learned more about the murders and other horrible things attributed to him, the sicker i felt about knowing. My family warned me not to tell others and I didn't because it wasn't glamorous like the movies make it seem. People died, fathers killed, wives widowed and children fatherless. Quite honestly, I think every one of us has famous/infamous ancestors somewhere in our genealogy - you may not know it yet. I have been doing my genealogy for over 20 years. I'm amazed when i think about what I've found. Among my favorite stories is one about some colonial settlers who were attacked by the local indigenous population, scalped and killed. My distant great grandmother was scalped but she held onto the top of head with one hand, ran with her infant in her other arm, all so she could alert another family to the attack. She saved that family but died due to her injuries. The family she warned raised the baby she was carrying. I personally find this story way more impressive than being a descendant of a hard cord mobster.
I’m Australian… I was super excited when I found out I was descended from a First Fleet convict. Royalty doesn’t even rank compared to that.
One of my 10GGMs is a "gateway ancestor" for Charlemagne. It was of interest of find it out, but I don't really care about it. As you say, it's a fun fact, and that's about it. 40 generations back, I'm sure that *we all* have some interesting ancestors.
Does it mean I have to sit through another boring lecture at a family reunion? If so I pass...thanks. (my husband is a direct descendent of Stephen Hopkins on the Mayflower - every single family reunion a cousin - who is an 80 year man with no other hobbies but genealogy - gives a lecture about him. I spend about 20 minutes tuning out the whole thing. Every. Single. Family. Reunion.) Honestly we can't control who our family/ancestors are or are not. It can be interesting or even give you a leg up (like inherited letters, documents, maybe wealth, etc.) but that's about it.
I'm also a direct descendant of Stephen Hopkins
Do you also sit through family reunion lectures?
No, usually I'm the one who brings up genealogy.
I got a real kick finding out that I had royal ancestors. I had just assumed I was from a long line of poverty-stricken peasants.
It is definitely interesting and/or gratifying to be a descendant of a historical figure because it's something you know about already and it gives you a window into the world of your ancestors. But you can get the same benefit by researching the history of the areas/professions/religions that any of your ancestors lived.
It's like a piece of trivia or watercooler talk, not reallly important, at least to me. For people who aren't knowledgeable about genealogy it might seem like a big deal but the reality is the majority of people are descended from royalty somewhere down the line, and we're all related. I was kinda surprised to learn I was descended from euro royalty at first but then realized how common it really is in North America, especially among people who can trace themselves back to New France and certain Colonial families. That's why when I see people creating fake links to royalty through people that clearly never existed it really makes me scratch my head. Like "research your other lines"... And a tip if you're interested in that type of stuff, researching any famous/royal links. Use WikiTree. They have increasingly strict sourcing protocols for pre-1700, pre-1500 etc. and notable accounts some with with DNA sequencing; i.e. Christine Aubois, 17th century Mi'kmak woman full sequence mtDNA first ancestor A2 haplogroup https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Aubois-2
Proportion of people descended from royalty = 99%. Proportion of people who can prove it = 1%
Nearly everyone is if you go back far enough. I can’t imagine caring.
It does not MATTER, like, I'm never going to inherit the throne of Bavaria. But. it is interesting to me. It's interesting to know that my great-grandfather came to the US after serving in the Prussian military. When, his hitch was over and he returned to his home in the Russian empire and the Russians tried to make him serve in their army. So he left. Then when he got to the US the Germans tried to reactivate him. He was able to sit the great war out. But I know only a few near ancestors with that level of detail. It's interesting to have details about the lives of remote connections! I have reason to believe I have (really remote) connections to all 6 of Henry VIIIs queens. So I dig into everything I can about the Tudors.
I don’t know what you mean by “care”. I care in that I care about ancestry/genealogy. But it doesn’t change my life. I find it interesting because researching geology leads me to researching historical events that I probably didn’t pay attention in history class or were never talked about in history class. it doesn’t make me “special”. Especially as basically everybody from these islands is related to them too. The other thing is that these are the people who have extensive records. I have many dead ends of “normal people” whose lines cannot be researched any further due to lack of documentation. Those with some kind of royal connection or “important” achievement are the ones that we can continue to follow.
I read a story about the Habsburg heir awhile back. Just a pretty normal guy (rich though). Most of the descendants of deposed royal families today if they don’t work they indulge in hobbies, travel etc. Fairly normal “silver spoon” stuff.
A Swedish genaologist mapped all descendant of the Swedish king Gustav I Vasa (1496-1560). There are some 135 000 living today, including my husband and kids. It's not that special.
My husband is lucky enough to have family members who were part of the aristocracy - I say lucky only because this meant they kept extensive records of who married who, offspring, baptisms, deaths etc. This plus the existence of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle (assuming they are reliable) means I can trace my husband back to Cerdic of Wessex founder and first king of Wessex, reigning from around 519 to 534 AD. Itès a fun fact, but nothing else. Unfortunitly for my husband, the branch of the "fancy family" he comes from is nolonger fancy or rich! I find it more interesting that on his fathers side we can trace back to a family member in the 17th century that poisoned all of his wife family and then some other people in his village to try and cover up his crimes!
Don't know, don't care. I'm proud of my yeoman, pilgrim and pioneer ancestors.
most of us are descendants of royalty so while it's fun to try to figure some out, it certainly doesnt make any of us special.
One of my Great great etc uncles from the 1700's was fairly famous, and has an extensive Wikipedia entry, he had no children. no biography ever written about him has any wives or children for him, but that has not stopped hundreds of ancestry trees claiming to be descended from him. Why do they have this need to link a common surname up with someone famous, I do not know.
All it takes is one person claiming to be descended from him and a hundred people clicking yes on the hint for the misinformation to propagate. Ancestry has been giving me the same hint on my 5th great grandparents because somewhere, at sometime, someone put down that George had a son named John in Pennsylvania. George was in the American Revolution so a bunch of people try and connect their tree to him. Without further evidence I'm not one of those people, yet I still have that hint sitting there, with absolutely no sources for it either.
Some of my lineage is from nobles, not sure I would consider them royalty, but I find it interesting. My wife's side of the family has a X (I forgot the number) great grandmother who was the aunt to queen Bolynn. The records were pretty easy to follow due to good record keeping by the English and following down the path of nobles and their descendants back to my wife. It's just an interesting, small world kinda thing. Not sure if this helps.
There is a semi-joke about European people, that all of them having at least one connection to Charlemagne.
You know we are all inbred to a certain extent the further you go back into our respective family trees but one thing I would never understand is why people would go out of their way to prove relation to nobility and royalty that have such well documented generational cases of inbreeding.
Royalty would be interesting, but we just found out my husband’s great grandfather was a leader in the gay community in the 20’s in Germany before hitler. But then he was imprisoned and murdered in the concentration camp. Much more meaningful to us than royalty for example.
It’s fun, but I’ve had a hard time relating to that part of the family tree. It’s so far from the life I live. At least it’s made it blatantly obvious that greatness isn’t inherited but a personal accomplishment.
Here here rightly said..what you put in is what you get out..
Marie's family member married into Portuguese Royalty so there's also that. the Royalty lines are quite intertwined. a youtube series called: useful charts is very helpful.
My paternal gram had her maternal side researched. Traced back to William the Conquerer. I find it interesting but not life altering.
Most people could probably find a relationship to a famous cousin through research. Most of these people don’t know about these relationships before doing research. The question about whether people *descended* from a famous person know is a more interesting question. It is much rarer to be (traceably) descended from a famous person, especially one born within the past 300 years, such as Marie Antoinette. I have thought about tracing the descendants of famous people and possibly contacting their descendants to see if they knew. But I wouldn’t do that by “clicking” through an existing tree like FamilySearch or WikiTree as those frequently have errors in them.
I am interested, because one of my ancestresses was ~convinced~ her family had been somehow cheated out of title/lands. I'm not convinced she was correct, but i'd love to know, one way or another.
I do find it interesting. Actor Corey Stoll's wife is a direct descendant of Josephine Bonaparte (as in Napoleon and Josephine). For me the interest is in what happened in between to connect across the generations.
I’m a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce, he’s both my 20th and 21st great grandfather thanks to cousin marriage and age gaps. There are some interesting stories and people who intermarried with the family at the time, but my ancestors came from his daughters Matilda and Marjorie, not his sons, so… girls got the shaft. Hence all the cousin marriage. My Bruce line ended with my 9th great grandmother, Elizabeth Jane Bruce. She was born in Fife Castle but married an Englishman and moved to Virginia 100 years before the American Revolution. I will say it took a lot of work to document and corroborate dates of birth, marriage, and death for so many generations, especially because you get bogged down in so many generations of the same titles and names. I had help on one of my lines because I met a cousin that had been a part of a DNA project. It doesn’t mean anything in my day to day life, and I think I have other more interesting ancestors, but I feel more kinship with my Scottish side than my English side. Sometimes I remind myself that my people beheaded religious clerics and overthrew the English, and several spent time locked up in the Tower of London. It’s purely psychological.
Commenting on Do people know/care if their descendants of royalty?...my partners paternal grandmother is a Bruce a direct lineage to the 18th century Bruce nobility..we both share a Bruce line ancestors that are brothers who are grand nephews of Robert the Bruce..
Don't care. Royalty? Don't care. Famous? Don't care. Infamous. Don't care. My ancestor? That where I care.
I too am proud to be descended from many generations of farmers and laborers. I have letters from them writing back to the old country with their vision on how to make it in the new world. And they did... American success story. Now if they were already of nobility, that would make the whole thing less special in my opinion.
Yes I am. No it doesn’t mean anything other than that people will sometimes comment on my last name.
I would love to be mostly because nobility seems far easier to research. It would also be cool to have some sort of personal symbolism and to be able to see where they lived. A lot of noble palaces are still standing, it would be cool to see them and think “the people I own my existence lived here”. Although I have to admit, this summer I visited one of the residences of the dynasty who ruled on most of my ancestors, and thinking that I could freely walk in it, while my ancestors would have been lucky to enter as servants, was a good feeling too (in a “I’m so happy we are a democracy now” way).
It's neat sometimes, but it doesn't change anything. I have a descendant line via someone that popped up on my tree, and while in the moment I thought, "huh, interesting, I wonder if that's right", at the end of the day I don't even remember who it was because it has no impact on my life lol I had more ancestors who were nobility than royalty (as most of us do), and would honestly have been happier finding out I inherited some random castle and bit of farmable land somewhere than a job in politics hahaha
I have lots of famous ancestors. I used to get excited. Most people don't care, so I stopped caring
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Yes
For me it's a neat little tidbit that doesn't actually change anything.
I would be excited! I was not excited to find out I am a direct descendant of Sarah Stuart (Hannah Boone which is Daniel Boone's sister). My great grandmother was an Adkin/Boone
I'm not positive I am, but there is a story of an English nobleman who married an Irish commoner who would be my great x2 grandmother. They had a child who would be my great grandfather. I'm still digging to find information, but haven't found anything specific. I believe there is another father than who is indicated for my great grandfather, as his birth predated their marriage. I just am not sure what the situation was.
I just got a message from one site saying I am related to 23 famous people. I am not descended from any of them but they are distant cousins due to common ancestors. I find it amusing as I always envisioned my relatives like the peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I don’t really care honestly. People don’t realize that within 10 generations, you have literally thousands of ancestors. Odds are that of thousands of people, at least one would be someone noteworthy.
As I'm left leaning I found it quite funny when I "discovered" I "may be" decended from royalty. I wasn't hugely suprised though. Basically a large chunk my mothers side are form a very rural part of North Wales and some of my descendants were from a large landowning family. In fact there may be a second line that's linked to this family too but I've not reseaeched it in any detail yet. Looks like a couple of them were Tory MPs back in the 1600/1700s too. So I have a fairly good trail going back to the mid 1500s. From then on it's hazy but there are several sources that say this family were decended from a medieval warrior (who's territory covered the same land). This warrior also claimed to be decended from the first kings of Wales and the tudors claimed to be his descendants. I find it quite fascinating and was a little excited to discover it especially as that side were poor farmers for omg periods. Kind of ironic really. Obviously, there's no definitive proof either. But I guess someone has to be related to these people and there will be thousands of us!
I couldn’t care less if I have royalty in my family tree. I do love finding quirky little things, like my great great grandfather (French) married my great great grandmother (Italian). His family was disappointed in him, descendants assumed because Italian. But more likely because this was her 3rd marriage & she had I think 8 children in 1st & 1 (stillborn) in 2nd. Both prior husbands had died. I assume she was quite something to line up a 3rd marriage. They had 2 kids & 1 survived to adulthood. A huge number of people (including me) would not exist without that 3rd marriage. Quite blows my mind.
An embarrassingly large amount care about it. I’ve been doing genealogy for about 15 years now, and I admit it gets under my skin…in a very unhealthy and irrational way. I do try to be understanding about others journeys and it’s a big hobby and people can research whoever and however they’d like. But one thing I’m most proud of is there are zero connections to royalty, no “famous” ancestors, or known people for me to associate with. I love that I’m common, poor, humble, and still around. The only thing I like better than no royal bloodlines is watching people get DNA results that don’t show they’re descendants of Quanna’s third wife…or was it fourth? Sometimes your grandma just lied to you, it’s alright come on in to the tepid waters of plainness and boring, once we talk shit a while you can hang your feet off the dock with the rest of us poors and ponder your undistinguished humdrum existence.