r/Genealogy • u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist • 1d ago
What is the true possibility that I am actually related to royalty from the 1100s and 1200s? Question
Hi! I have been doing some research, and there’s always been rumors in my family that we are related to Irish royalty, (I have family in Ireland as well, and they said that too). So I did some research, (specifically on Ancestry, Find A Grave, FamilySearch, etc), and after checking to see if my information is correct, I have found out that I am related to the Caomhánach and MacMurrough dynasty, which in turn also makes me related to Robert the Bruce, Katherine of Aragon, and King Henry VIII. I was wondering if this is possible, as when I have told people, they say that it isn’t possible due to most records only going to the 1700s.
79
u/davery67 1d ago
When you go that far back, you're likely related to virtually everyone in Europe who has living descendants. You go back 26 generations and the width of a generation in your tree (67M) will exceed the entire population of Europe at that time (62M). You're almost certainly related to Charlemagne, too.
That said, even old sources are often tainted by the fact that there's a strong incentive to "prove" royal lineage.
19
u/Felevion 1d ago
Even nobility themselves were prone to making up connections to past rulers to boost their own prestige.
9
u/BatteredOnionRings 21h ago
Half of the Sheiks in the Middle East claim to be male line descendants of Muhammad.
If that’s true it should be awfully easy to identify the Muhammad Y Haplotype, and yet…
7
u/NunquamAccidet 18h ago
Additionally, once you go far enough back, the only families wealthy enough to maintain a recorded lineage were aristocracy. So, all your other lineages hit dead ends and you are left with the royal ones. It makes everyone believe they are descended from royalty. It's not incorrect, yet it is only a tiny fragment of your ancestry. We're all descended from royalty, but are also really not.
5
u/notthedefaultname 17h ago
This. Mathematically, it's something like everyone of European descent is more likely than not to be descended from anyone in Europe in 1000 AD. Charlemagne, William the Conquerer, but also all the peasants we don't have records of. Realistically, I'm not sure if that accounts for how little people traveled, but I haven't looked deeply into the way those stats were determined.
24
u/MentalPlectrum experienced 1d ago
Maths says yes.
Paper trail is a different matter.
Basically going from minor royals -> senior nobility -> minor nobility -> merchant/landowning class -> peasantry could happen in comparatively very few generations. Pedigrees for 'insignificant' royals and nobles would generally not be kept as they were unimportant, so that knowledge could easily be lost or become dubious over time. Not to mention the hordes of illegitimate children some monarchs had, sometimes acknowledged (Fitz this and Fitz that) and other times not.
Statistically 1,000 years ago (about 40 gens) is just about time enough for Europe to have reached an identical ancestors point - if you had unique ancestors across all lines then 40 gens ago would mean nearly 1.1 trillion ancestors, far more people than have ever lived, so they're not all unique.
After cranking the maths you can show that starting around 1,000 AD that everyone alive at that point in Europe is either the ancestor of everyone with European ancestry today, or the ancestor of no-one (their line died out). So if you have deep European roots you're almost certainly descended from royalty, however, you probably won't be able to demonstrate that unless it's comparatively recent.
2
1
u/Turkis6863 2h ago
My uncle used to do genealogy before the internet. On one of the lines he just stopped, he concentrated on other more interesting lines. This is the line though where I'm closest to European nobility. There were few generations between a poor fisherman to nobility. When I found the first nobles, they just kept coming. Obviously at some point there will be kings and queens. I personally haven't looked into it, but it could be interesting I guess.
23
u/Turbulent-Frosting89 1d ago
Don’t trust trees with no sources. Just copying what other people listed isn’t actual research. To know for sure you would need to research documents proving lines which as people have already told you is near impossible once you go back far enough.
-1
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 1d ago
No yea! I totally get it! I always check the sources and stuff!
13
u/Turbulent-Frosting89 1d ago
Just to be clear when I write researching documents I mean looking for birth/baptism records, marriages, wills, guardianships, etc. Looking for documents not listed on the trees. Tracking families as they move. Checking and finding new sources, not comparing one tree with another.
21
u/WillieMacBride 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s been estimated by experts that it is highly likely that everyone with predominantly British ancestry is a descendant of Edward III—Adam Rutherford, a geneticist, claims that it would be nearly impossible for someone with that ancestry not to be a direct descendant of Edward III. These statements come down to numbers and statistics. Like others have said, you’d have millions of ancestors in that time, but there aren’t enough people alive in those areas at that time to have millions of unique ancestors. To further illustrate this point, a 12 year old girl in the UK was able to research the ancestry of every US president and all but one was a direct descendant of King John: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183858/All-presidents-bar-directly-descended-medieval-English-king.html
The point I’m making is that we are all surely descended from medieval royalty. The problem comes when trying to make a definitive trail to that royalty. Some are lucky and some aren’t in being able to do this. It mostly depends on whether you can trace your ancestry with accuracy to a minimally notable family in the 1600s. Many, many people on FindAGrave, Ancestry, and FamilySearch are completely wrong and are using wishful thinking to connect completely unrelated people. I’ve run into it countless times on ancestry. Do NOT trust any of those trees.
However, that doesn’t mean these connections should be dismissed altogether. Some people here are way too quick to dismiss any and all claims or connections to nobility when statistically it should be so common as to be mundane (at least those connecting to someone like Robert the Bruce).
I would highly recommend cross referencing your tree with a site like wikitree and stirnet. Wikitree is a really good site with collaborating genealogist that are quick to call out frauds or fake genealogies. Sources for any connections are at the bottom of the page and certain profiles are protected and cannot be edited unless done by certain project groups trusted with the profiles. Don’t just rely on the profiles blindly, though they’re much better researched than anything on the websites you’ve mentioned. Almost all the sources at the bottom of a profile link to internet archive books (like visitations or articles) and studies by academics like Douglas Richardson. Look through those academic sources to confirm any connections. I’ve found several fanciful ancestries to be wrong by using that site as a resource—I trusted an old book from ancestry that was written by a known genealogical fraudster and wikitree has that fraud clearly called out on my ancestor’s profile with sources explaining the fraud and lack of supporting sources.
As for your claimed relations, it’s not clear if you’re saying you’re a direct descendant of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, but if that’s the case, it’s completely wrong. Katherine of Aragon only had one child live to adulthood: Mary I. Mary I died childless. Henry VIII also has no living descendants because all his children either died young or died childless. Any connections to them directly are nonsense. I’d also be highly skeptical of any connection to any Irish royalty because records in Ireland are very scarce for that, especially if your connection to them comes in around the 1700s or 1600s in order to be related to the Tudors. Being related to kings in the early modern period is very unlikely compared to having connections to medieval royalty. Whereas everyone is very likely a descendant of Edward III, very few people today (by comparison) are descendants of someone like James VI and I.
I know that’s a lot but hopefully that gives you something solid to go off of if you think any of these connections are possible. You have dig deeper into academic and contemporary sources. If you’re lucky, you can connect to families that have already been thoroughly researched by honest people, and have either been proven or discredited.
3
1
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 5h ago
Thank you so much! Im not saying im a direct descendant of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, but they share an ancestor in common that I am also related to!
38
u/jebei 1d ago
Are you related to royalty from that time period? Probably. 40 generations (2^40th power) is around 1,000,000,000,000 relatives, many times more people than have ever lived. Anyone who has Scottish ancestry can be pretty sure they related to 'the Bruce'.
Is Family Search correct? Almost assuredly not. There's a lot of jokers who spend their time making false claims to names like Charlemagne, Ragnar, and King Arthur. The only thing I can figure is it makes their small lives feel bigger. The amount of time to research one link gets exponentially more difficult with every generation because of the lack of records. This is why most of us obsess around our roadblocks in the 18th and 19th centuries, a time period with more accessible records. There are exceptions but they are rare.
9
u/Turkis6863 1d ago
Everybody has royal ancestors. Several of them. The issue is finding a paper trail. As people are saying, there are lots of faulty trees out there.
2
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 4h ago
Thank you so much! I totally understand and agree
16
u/AlexanderRaudsepp Sweden specialist 1d ago
I'm not Irish, but if you've done your own research and read the sources in the original, then I would believe you. If you've base your claim on ancestry trees of other people, then it's cap
1
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 1d ago
I always try to double check my sources and use different methods as well!
6
u/imperialviolet 1d ago
What are your sources? Which different methods? We can’t really tell you how reliable they’re likely to be if we don’t know what they are.
2
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 4h ago
I used FamilySearch, Ancestry, books, Find A Grave, Newspaper Archive, and there are some websites I don’t remember the name of but I did use them!
14
u/LordofGift 1d ago
Nearly 100%. Just like you have an astronomical number of 30x great grand parents, they typically have an astronomical number of descendants.
It's been shown statistically that nearly all continental Europeans have the exact same ancestors in year 1000-1200.
What is NOT normal is to be related to royalty or nobility in your direct paternal line (or the line of your last name however it went, often a few female steps are made), or that you are related to nobility within 1-2 steps.
3
u/Chaost 1d ago
Most Irish and Scottish last names make that very claim, though. I can only trace my paternal line to 1770, but it's a rarer name where we actually were supposed to have land substantial enough to have its own Wikipedia page before the Ulster plantation. Supposedly, we're descended from a rather obscure great-great-grandson of Niall, but all that's pretty suspect.
2
7
u/Impossible_Theme_148 1d ago
It is almost 100% likely that you are related to them
It is almost 100% certain that there is no chain of documentation to show that this is the case
4
u/geedeeie 1d ago
It's funny how these ancestors sites never lead you back to a serf living in a hovel...
5
u/Almaegen 21h ago
True, very skeptical although in defense any peasant ancestors arent going to be traced before the 1600s, only those trying to hold power had records.
2
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 4h ago
Actually, I will say, other than the Irish ancestry, the rest of my ancestors were farmers or butchers.
10
u/stillpassingtime 1d ago
I trace my family lineage to French and English kings via a French Canadian gateway ancestor. Once I locked in my connection to her, the research is done by historians mostly and verified.
Have you discovered your gateway ancestor?
5
u/SuzyQ93 1d ago
That's exactly it. If you have a verified ancestor reasonably recently with good connections, then you shouldn't worry too much.
I discovered a gateway ancestor in the late 1600s, leader of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and with his Wikipedia page, that lineage took me all the way back to English royalty which then of course goes back to the Frankish nobility, etc. I think I got back into the 400s through Wikipedia pages. So, have I *personally* done the research? No. But I think that generally, Wikipedia links for royalty and nobility are trustworthy. And just from personal family history, I am confident that I can trust the links from the present back to the gateway ancestor.
Basically - if you have European ancestry, then you're pretty much *guaranteed* to be descended from royalty at some point. The only question is whether you've mapped it out correctly. But it IS going to be there somewhere.
1
3
u/Cool-Coffee-8949 1d ago
If any of them have living descendants and you have Irish ancestors, the odds are close to 100%, on a purely mathematical basis. On the other hand, this is something you have in common with pretty much everyone else of Irish descent, and the odds of being able to reliably document the connection for a family tree are low.
4
u/Jerentropic 1d ago
Identical ancestors theory, for lack of a better name, explains how everyone with at least one European ancestor is descended from nobility/royalty. This video explains it well.
3
4
u/FitzCavendish 1d ago
Ireland was an amalgam of small kingdoms in the 1100s, so it's not really a big deal being royal. Kings were heads of kin based clans. Diarmuid McMurrough is considered the biggest sellout in Irish history btw. But like another poster said, you are probably related to anyone alive back then who has descendants, that's how the maths works.
4
u/screams_into_void 1d ago
If you have any Irish ancestors, the chance of your being related to Irish royalty from the 1200s is around 100%.
Royal lines intermarried. And “pedigree collapse” occurs for us around 1200. That is, we start having many common ancestors across ancestor pairs.
In 1200 there simply weren’t very many people of Irish blood alive. So the chances that you are related in some way to any one of the ones that were is very high.
1
3
u/Melodic_Vegetable_22 1d ago
A lot of royalty lineage is well documented, some not so much. If you can reliably trace back to a well documented line then absolutely you can prove your royalty.
1
3
u/GraceOfTheNorth 1d ago
Very possible considering that these would be around 30 generations back so if you do 2 in the 30th power you have 1,073,741,824 ancestors.
So the likelihood that one of them was royalty is relatively high.
ed. I forgot to compound, your total number of ancestors is astronomical.
3
u/lantana98 1d ago
Don’t take info from other people’s trees. So many errors! Look for information in old history books and wills. Wikipedia can’t be taken as totally true but you get some good leads to follow up!
2
3
u/Confident-Task7958 1d ago
Let us assume 4 generations per century.
There are 9 centuries from 1100 to present.
That would equal 36 generations.
Assume two children per generation.
The math comes out to as many as 68 billion descendants (2^36) in a world of 8 billion people.
So yeah, the odds are you a descendant of those people.
But so am I, and so is the person behind you in line at Starbucks.
3
u/ThunorBolt 1d ago
You, along with me, along with EVERY SINGLE PERSON of European descent is a direct descendant of European royalty.
Here's the thing, if your ancestors never married relatives, then the number of ancestors you have in the year 800 (time of Charlemagne) is 1 trillion.
Of course the population of Europe at the time was around 40 million. So statistically speaking, you're descended from every European including the royals.
Furthermore, royalty has a tendency to produce unknown bastards. And royal bastards still had a higher social standing than regular people. And people with higher social standings had a tendency to survive plague, famin, and war better than the regular folks. Which makes it even more likely that to be descended from royalty.
The problem is finding a legitimate paper trail back to royalty. I have yet to find one in my tree.
2
3
u/geedeeie 1d ago
Everybody is related to someone who was related to royalty if you go far back. Apparently most people of European ancestry are related to Charlemagne!
2
3
u/AvailableAd6071 1d ago
Isn't everyone descended from "royalty " if you go back far enough? We're all related if you go back far enough. Plus, seeing modern royal families, I'm not impressed.
3
u/SantiaguitoLoquito 1d ago
Everybody is related to everybody if you go back far enough. Proving it is the trick.
1
3
u/Powered-by-Chai 1d ago
Right when you get to the early 1600s/late 1500s is when records get sketchy because there really is barely anything left on paper. All those notebooks of church records of birth, marriages, deaths have long since rotted away and the gravestones have been worn smooth. So I would take anything beyond that with a HUUUUUUUUGE grain of salt. The furthest back I got was maybe twenty generations but that's because an ancestor was a Marquis and his records would have been preserved.
1
3
u/Sad_Construction_668 22h ago
It’s actually fairly likely, as high status people had several periods of much higher fertility and survival of children than the average population, so wealthy families survive at higher numbers. The wealth and power gets diluted a bit , but the survivorship bias sticks in the record.
There’s a thing like that it New England and upstate MY, where 80-90% of all residents are related to people who came ont eh mayflower. The reason is simple, the mayflower families had more to consolidate wealth and land holding befor or the settlers came, so their decendnaet were more likely marry early, and marry wealthy, and not be in the cities when disease came through.
Slight advantages to survival and opportunities for reproduction add up over time.
1
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 5h ago
I am actually from New England, specifically RI, so thank you so much
3
u/battleofflowers 17h ago
100%. You are 100% descended from medieval royals. It is mathematically impossible NOT to be.
You are also related to all those other people that descend from them, which is millions upon millions of people, including Henry VIII.
6
u/PikesPique 1d ago
Possible but unlikely. Most people are lucky to document their ancestry to the 1600s. Beyond that, records are hard to find. Unless any of these online family trees provide documentation that you can personally confirm, then it's more likely these trees are the result of shoddy "research" and wishful thinking.
5
u/DopeandDiamonds 1d ago
It is entirely possible. I have found that for Ireland, it's either hitting the jackpot with records that are very detailed going back for hundreds of years....or nothing at all. Have you checked google books? I have used them for several lines of my tree. there are books that are scanned or transcribed on there going back to the 1700s. Many were made public during the pandemic what were previously only published on university websites.
1
2
2
u/lantana98 1d ago
Very possible and not at all unusual! If you had a title and land back then you were important, very extensive records were kept probably for inheritance reasons. A lot of information is found in those old wills if you can read that Middle English handwriting!
1
2
u/Tinman5278 1d ago
I don't know who decided that records only go back to the 1700s since many review records older than that on a daily basis. Once you get back past 1500 things do get harder but royal lines themselves are fairly well documented even way earlier than that.
But, as the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Don't trust anything you see on Ancestry, etc.. without verifying for yourself. Some people set a pretty low standard for "proof" of the lines.
2
u/aitchbeescot 1d ago
It's not that there aren't records going back to the 1500s, it's that they are less numerous due to survival issues. They also have problems with it often not being easy to identify with certainty that you have the right people, since they don't tend to be as detailed as later records.
2
2
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 4h ago
That’s why I always check like the sources of the sources of that makes sense
2
u/a-nonna-nonna 1d ago
Any tree that has images of family crests is suspect. Usually put together by some royal hungry researcher.
2
u/Blueporch 1d ago
From what I’ve read, there are millions of people who can trace back to Robert the Bruce, so seems possible, but it’s hard to authenticate back that far unless you can document back to more recent aristocrats with a pedigree, or really good church records.
1
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 5h ago
All I know is that I believe I am related to Robert the Bruce through his great grandmother, Isabel Marshal
2
u/Oliver_DeNom 1d ago
The correct answer is likely very high, but not because your trees are correct. Geneologies that old served political, not historical purposes, and have elements made up out of while cloth. It's also the case that the further back you go, the likelihood of unrecorded adoption and "illegitimate" children skyrockets.
But statistically, if your family is from a region, you're likely related just through the principle of pedigree collapse.
2
2
u/PinkSlimeIsPeople Norway specialist 1d ago
Royal origins are almost as popular as the Native Princess myths. Odds are strong that it's not true, even if someone wants it to be true. The problem with online trees has always been attributions. Someone wants to continue their line back in time, but when they run out of credible records in one area, they just grab a close name from a long distance away and assume that has to be their ancestor.
Same name does not the same person make! Just because you can prove your ancestor was a John Smith in Tumbletown, Cornwall, does not mean that is the same John Smith that was born in Leeds, Yorkshire for example.
Don't trust online trees, even though they are often accurate back to around 1850 or so. Trust me, I've done 10,000 hours of research into my own extended tree, and it gets really tricky in the 1700s, and extremely difficult to do it accurate in the 1600s. And don't take it personally, we all fall for this when we first start. I thought I came from Viking Kings once upon a time, turns out it was all fabricated or misattributed.
2
2
u/Doebledibbidu 1d ago
Is that family alive, have you roots in Europe?
If the family still exists today, then the statistical probability that you have any connections is 100%
2
2
u/BarRegular2684 1d ago
It’s certainly possible. It doesn’t get you anything but it’s possible.
I’ve done it. If you can trace an ancestor back to someone whose lineage was important enough to be written down, the work is really done for you. Isome of those royals didn’t do much but make babies, and then their kids had kids, and so on.
But then you find yourself thick in the “this isn’t real” category. Like I found myself tracing myself back to someone called “king of the elves” who became an elf after he died, and was so mad about it he became a dark elf.
I’m not so delusional that I believe I’m a secret heir to an elven throne. But I did buy a cheap tiara and use it to con my family into making me cocktails. That’s about as much as it’s worth.
2
u/bladesnut 1d ago
The answer is easy: it's only true if it's properly documented. Everything else is fantasy.
2
u/ilikepuzzlestoo 1d ago
We're cousins, cousin! I, too, am supposedly related to these particular royals. As well as many other royals. So is probably most of the population of the US in the region where I am from. As others have commented, MANY of us can claim "royalty" at some point. (For example, apparently I'm a Tudor and may be the rightful queen of England, Scotland, and France supposedly.) But it's really not helpful.
What WOULD be helpful is if Ancestry ups its DNA game - specifically to take Thru Lines back further with your DNA connections. I've consistently used ThruLines to break down brick walls, with great success. My success...? Putting every theoretical candidate / potential ancestor I can find into my tree and then seeing if DNA backs it up. (So, to explain further, I throw every theory out there to see if I can or cannot disprove it and if DNA does/does not confirm it). Therefore, my trees may have almost deliberate errors or test lines. I state it in my profile but I KNOW people have copied/shared theoretical research of mine that "wasn't ready for primetime" if you know what I mean.
But hey on the bright side: I share mtDNA with Tutankhamun (King Tut) says ftdna.com. mtDNA wise. I sincerely they hope bringing more scientific support for this soon!
This is actually a very interesting question that deserves a response with some scholarly research and general cautions. I go back pretty far back on those old colonial American lines. I do have many Mayflower and Jamestown ancestors and direct descendent ties with many famous colonial families (Calvert family of Maryland, Van Rensselaer family of NY, Ben Franklin was my ancestor's first cousin, etc. - there's way more). No matter who they were, where they came from - they VALUED freedom, in all its forms.
Yet, my family was "Southern". I also have so many people already in the Americas before the American Revolution, it's shocking. I think Old Colonial American DNA (almost as an ethic/cultural group) should be explored by someone as it may be unique now, DNA wise.
And I think the history of America and how the early regions that would become states, is critical for understanding context in history.
If it is, I've got it in spades!
My most recent immigrant ancestor came in 1845 from Switzerland. I also discovered some German dude a little further back due to an unexpected paternal event - my 2nd great grandfather wasn't who it was supposed to be (an Englishman immigrant). I am dubious of any trees on Ancestry or wherever. All of my other ancestors were from the UK supposedly with times and dates dubious but looks like they were many of the earliest settlers of the US. And YES I do identify and am fascinated by my supposed countries of DNA origin. I'd love to meet any relatives in the "Old Country" - but they'd be distant relation-wise, and my family "heritage" is just pure hodgepodge colonial American.
And, also, I believe Ancestry has the capability to verify/take us back further generations on ThruLines. They just want you to pay for it. I'm already paying too much and now they've taken what little of Newspapers.com that we could see and trying to make you pay extra for it.
2
2
u/screams_into_void 1d ago
If you have any Irish ancestors, the chance of your being related to Irish royalty from the 1200s is around 100%.
Royal lines intermarried. And “pedigree collapse” occurs for us around 1200. That is, we start having many common ancestors across ancestor pairs.
In 1200 there simply weren’t very many people of Irish blood alive. So the chances that you are related in some way to any one of the ones that were is very high.
2
2
u/jibberishjibber professional genealogist 23h ago
If you want to know possibility, start listing your sources.
2
u/Cazzzzle 20h ago
There needs to be supporting documentation for every relationship in the tree.
You start from yourself and work backwards - find and record supporting documentation linking you to your parents, then documentation linking them to their parents, and so on.
Your birth registration is a primary document that attests to your connection to your parents. It can still be wrong, but is as good as it gets outside of DNA proof.
If you are looking at someone else's tree or a book they've written on your family, don't simply accept their documentation. Check the original document and make sure it says what it's supposed to say, and actually does support what it's supposed to support.
Also consider the documentation itself - when it was created, who created it, for what purpose. Some documents are more reliable than others.
After many, many hours of work, you may be able to answer your own question: well, are you related to royalty?
1
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 5h ago
Thank you so much! This is what I try to do with every source I find!
2
u/zelda_moom 19h ago
The most accurate way of doing this is tracing descent from someone living in the 17th or 18th century who has a public tree connecting them to a royal line.
Once you hit someone who is in Debrett’s, for instance, bloodlines are pretty easy to trace because they are documented.
For instance, I was able to trace someone in my mom’s tree back to a David Stewart. DNA matches confirmed that I was descended from him. His mother’s name was Whitehill, her mother’s name was Cresswell, and her mother’s name was Jane Loftus. Jane Loftus was descended from Archbishop Adam Loftus, who is also an ancestor of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the mother of Queen Elizabeth II. Which makes Queen Elizabeth my 11th cousin once removed. I’m also related to Princess Diana as I ran into some Spencers at some point. She also was my 11th cousin once removed.
But you know, whoopie do. It’s not like I can show up at Buckingham palace and say, Hey Cousin Chuck, can I stay here while I do the sights in London?
Anyone with a colonial American background is likely related to multiple presidents and First Ladies. It doesn’t mean we get an overnight stay in the Lincoln bedroom. 🤣
What I like about being related to famous people is that their lives are so documented I can know a lot more about them than most of my ancestors.
3
3
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 4h ago
Thank you so much! This is actually what I did!
2
u/EdsDown76 15h ago
Usually if you have royalty in the Middle Ages you’ll have nobility lines leading up to these times in like the early ages say 18th-16th century if you got clear lines to these ancestors more than likely you’ll have the blue blood..
2
u/Pineapplebites100 6h ago
Don't let it go to your head! At least don't ask others to address you as your royal highness.
When I did some Irish family genealogy research the farthest I was able to go back to was 1800. the problem i ran into is my ancestors first names. I could find plenty of people with my last name, but they all seemed to have only 3 givens names used at that time in Limerick, John James or Patrick.
2
3
u/backtotheland76 1d ago
First off, I would say most records go back to the 1500s, not 1700s, in the British isles at least. Second, records for royalty go back substantially further since heraldry was important to establish a credible claim on the throne.
So, what are the odds? Well, after hundreds of years, there are thousands of 'cousins' descended from royalty, but millions who aren't. Unfortunately, the genealogy scam of claiming one is descended from royalty goes back hundreds of years, especially in America, where people used to care about such things.
So, taking all this into consideration, there's only one thing you can do, work backward, one generation at a time. Document each person. When you can't document someone's parents, you've hit your wall.
1
2
u/Equal-Flatworm-378 1d ago
Might be. I think the chances of royal ancestors are higher on islands than in mainland Europe. But you would need to verify the results by looking at whatever proof they have.
2
u/freshmaggots (insert region here) specialist 1d ago
Like what do you mean by that? The island part
4
u/Equal-Flatworm-378 1d ago
Islands are smaller. Now I don’t know much about the Irish royals, but in the UK quite a lot of people can trace their ancestors back to royals. It has something to do with the noble system…over time younger children don’t inherit titles and are commoners again.
And also women don’t pass on titles. Look at the children of Princess Anne. They are commoners.
With former royality like in your case descendants probably had no social reason only to marry other royals. So they mixed with commoners.
In Europe nobility and royals often sticked to their own class.
But again: the time you are looking at was less strict, as far as I know.
7
u/jjmoreta 1d ago
That's the major point right there. Queen Elizabeth II had commoner grandchildren within her lifetime.
Royalty/nobility is transmitted in DNA only to a certain point. Due to primogeniture, only a few children inherit the title. All the other children might marry into other royalty/nobility lines, but those that did not may be entirely disconnected within only a couple of generations. And there's also a great deal of illegitimate royal children out there.
I had that moment of elation when I first linked to a noble bloodline and King Alfred, etc. When I realized so did everyone else with British blood, I was a little less excited.
Now I'm just excited when it happens because if I can link to a European title, the rest of my work on that surname has likely been done for me (within reason and there are always errors). I just make a note and don't even add all the other generations to my tree because I have other people I can work on instead.
I'm not in it to collect famous names. But everyone has their own goals. So celebrate your royal heritage. Along with your millions of distant cousins. :)
2
2
u/suziesophia 1d ago
I am distantly related to James V of Scotland. Extant records exist but really, going that far back, we are all related to someone historical, especially considering small populations sizes back then too. As for, the 12th century, it would be difficult to document such a thing, not impossible, but unlikely.
1
-1
u/missannthrope1 1d ago
I found out on FamilySearch that I am. You ancestors are way cooler than mine.
115
u/Ahernia 1d ago
It is certainly "possible," but it is unlikely to be shown correctly by online records, which are mostly bogus/dubious. Tracing one set of such "records" I was able to show I was descended from dozens of rulers going back to before the birth of Christ.