Welcome to my new 25th cousin once-removed (also
my 26th cousin once-removed through a different line), HRH Louis Arthur Charles, Prince of Cambridge.
Royal Family Tree from the Daily Mail |
Although this new English cousin and I will never meet, I do
have a large contingent of cousins in England who are more accessible. They’re not really close from a lineage
perspective (a lot closer than the Prince of Cambridge!), but they are
important to me nonetheless, because I’ve gotten to know a good number of them
well. I have four second cousins
once-removed (siblings) and a whole lot more third cousins (and third cousins
once-removed!) in the UK.
They are from a good solid upper middle class background and
the four siblings (who are my mother’s second cousins) have welcomed me into
their homes and lives, for which I am grateful.
They have children, some of whom have children of their own, thus my
thirds and thirds-once, mentioned above.
One difficulty for genealogists in the UK is that many of
their vital statistics records were destroyed or simply not kept in the 17th
Century during the UK Civil War. It is
very difficult for anyone of UK heritage, particularly in England, to trace their
families past the 1700s. Royal and noble
lineages were still carefully maintained, but a large swath of the “regular
people” are not able to get back into the 1600s.
My UK cousins, although part of neither royalty nor nobility
in the past few centuries, are able to trace a part of their lineage back to William
the Conqueror and beyond. Although their
17th century family records largely fell to the same fate as the
bulk of their countrymen, nonetheless they can make that connection. Here’s how:
English Coin of William the Conqueror |
I and my English cousins are among those descendants. The reason my cousins in the UK do know about
their descent from King Henry II and his great-grandfather, William the
Conqueror, and about their connection to the newest royal heir, Louis, Prince of Cambridge, is through
an American connection. These four
siblings had an American mother through whom the Plantagenet connection was
established.
The colonization of the New World was, in part, a big
land-grab. Territory was there for the
taking and trading. Colonists in New England
were assigned their tracts of land as they became freemen (and based on the
size of their families) and they sold, bought and traded their land regularly. Because of this emphasis on land and family,
the colonies kept meticulous records of land transactions and birth and death
records. These records, unaffected by
the English civil war drama, were maintained carefully.
John and Stephen Merrill from England with my mother, their second cousin. |
After the war, Jane visited with the two young children born
in the interim – my mother was born the same year that Jane’s first son was
born and they met each other at the age of four or so. The families stayed in touch and the
broadening number of cousins have attempted to keep up with one another over
the years.
John Black, one of the two cousins that Jane was able to see
during the war, later commissioned the New England Historic and Genealogical
Society to trace his lineage. In doing
so, they proved his descent from King Henry II, one of the millions of his
descendants. I remember John, a great
fan of the film “Lion in Winter” (starring Peter O’Toole as Henry II and Katharine
Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine) explaining that we were “descended from Peter
O’Toole but not Katharine Hepburn”, as the descent was through Sir William Longespée,
Earl of Salisbury,an illegitimate child of Henry II and his ward, Ida de Tony, who later married
Roger Bigod, a Magna Carta baron.
This descent, through a common ancestor we all share (my
great-great grandmother, Sarah Antrim), has been proven all the way back to
King Henry II. Therefore, my English
cousins have a proof of descent from Henry II, primarily because of their
American ancestors whose records were kept intact.
My two-page documentation of descent from King Henry II and my very far-removed relation to the newest British heir |
As one English cousin in his 20s (my third cousin, Ralph,
pronounced in the old-fashioned way, “Rafe”) said, “It’s not surprising that
we’re descended from him – it’s just surprising that we can show it.” The English know their stuff – pretty much
the entire Anglo-Saxon residents of the British Isles descend from Henry II. They just don’t know how!
And what about today?
The newest heir to the British throne has just been born, fifth in
succession after his grandfather, father and two siblings. He, too is descended from King Henry II. And he too is descended from his mistress and
illegitimate son, the Earl of Salisbury (Henry did well by his illegitimate
children).
Louis is, in fact, descended from Salisbury through both
his mother and father. Catherine,
Duchess of Cambridge’s father, Michael Middleton, and HRH William, Prince of Wales’
mother, Lady Diana, both descend from the Earl of Salisbury, Henry II’s son, as
well.
Welcome to the world, Louis, Prince of Cambridge, my twenty-fifth cousin
once-removed through your mother and my twenty-sixth cousin once-removed
through your father. Best of luck to
you!
The takeaway:
In our case, we have a long, proven chart that demonstrates
that I am Henry’s 25x-great grandson.
This doesn’t make me special or important in any way. But from a genealogical perspective it is of
interest. Those of us who study family
history and our own genealogy are always (see my very first post on this blog)
fascinated by the events of history and how they related to our own ancestors
and family. The fact that historical
events have taken place that were witnessed by my ancestors (or, as with Henry
II, in which they participated) brings them closer to me. I want to know more of these events, and it me
to speculate, what was my ancestor thinking and feeling when she or he went
through that event that we still read about today?
I feel a connection to this latest heir to the British
throne. Not because we share some
infinitesimal amount of DNA, but because we have common ancestors whose lives
are known to us, to some extent. We know
about some of their triumphs, tribulations and something about their
lives. We know because our current day
lives are what they are, in some small part, to what these ancestors did during
their own lives. We owe our existence to
theirs and we owe a part of our daily lives in part to what they did in their
daily lives. I’ll never know these royal
cousins of mine (and they’ll never know I exist!), but they are special to me.
Notes:
William the Conqueror coin attribution: By PHGCOM - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5987249
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