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The Ancestry of the New British Royal Baby Explained in RD 900 – By Gary Boyd Roberts

Perhaps surprisingly to many readers, the new royal child—Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor–is descended from six of the 970 immigrants to the U.S. treated in Gary Roberts’ two-volume Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants (RD 900). The five the royal baby inherits from the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother or from the late Diana Princess of Wales are charted on pp. 930-932; the immigrants are Richard and Anna (Cordray) Bernard,  Colonel George Reade, and Mary (Towneley) Warner, all Virginia ancestors of the Queen Mother, and Mrs. Alice Freeman Thompson Parke of Stonington, Connecticut, an ancestor of Diana. Archie’s descent via his mother (the former Meghan Markle), from Rev. William Skipper/Skepper of Boston, Mass., appears on pp. 342-344. The young child is 41% British, 39% American, and 20% European.  Twenty-five percent of that American ancestry is African-American; the remainder is Connecticut, Massachusetts or New Hampshire Yankee, New Jersey Quaker, Pennsylvania-German, and Anne Arundel County, Maryland. (This last is the family of William Black, whose will was dated 8 January and proved 21 April 1771, and his wife, whose name was probably Catharine _____.) The British ancestry, through the late Queen Mother and Diana again, is largely noble but includes English yeoman, many Aberdeen Scots, and some Anglo-Irish. The European ancestry—through the Duke of Edinburgh and King George VI– is largely of the Protestant German royal caste but includes some merely noble German, Hungarian, French, and Dutch nobility, gentry, or burghers. Such multi-racial, multi-national, and multi-ethnic ancestry is unique among royalty, but bi-racial and multi-ethnic ancestry is now quite common in America and Great Britain.

The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants

The new royal baby’s first cousins, Princes George and Lewis and Princess Charlotte, are descended through their mother–the former Catherine (“Kate”) Elizabeth Middleton—from a sister of Harriet Martineau, the 19th-century British traveler to the U.S. and the author of Society in America (3 vols., 1837). (This connection is shown on pp. 379-381.) Other cousins of the young princes and princess through the Martineaus are Mrs. John T. Cahill, wife of a noted New York lawyer, and filmmaker Guy Stuart Ritchie, former husband of Madonna. This variety of connections for the newest members of the British royal family is only one of many startling discoveries readers will find The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants, by Mr. Gary Boyd Roberts.

Two More Endorsements for RD 900

Speaking of Gary Roberts’ book, Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants, we recently received two strong reviews for that publication, from the journals of the St. Louis Genealogical Society and the San Antonio Genealogical and Historical Society. Here are excerpts from both reviews:

“It was truly a pleasure to have been able to review this book set . . . [RD 900] is a two volume reference every genealogist should have access to in their resource arsenal as soon as they attempt to ‘jump the pond’ in their research . . . The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or the United States, by Gary Boyd Roberts, is an invaluable resource to everyone researching their family histories, especially if they can trace descent from an ancestor who came to the colonies in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. It is something I will be investing in for my own library in the near future. I was able to find my own Massachusetts immigrant ancestors, Peter and Edward Bulkeley listed in this massive compilation . . . “—Annette Graham, Our Heritage, San Antonio Genealogical and Historical Society, Volume 60, Numbers 1&2 (Fall and Wiinter-2018-2019).

“The book matches the nobility to United States citizens ranging from everyday individuals (you and me) to famous and notable people . . . Family lineage starting with the nobility may extend more than twenty generations . . . This book has an exhaustive amount of information and is fun to use. It will certainly add a new conversation topic for your next family gathering, not to mention adding more data for your family history. Do not overlook the possibility of a royal connection!”—Ann Carter Fleming, CG, St. Louis Genealogical Society Quarterly, Spring 2019.

1 thought on “The Ancestry of the New British Royal Baby Explained in RD 900 – By Gary Boyd Roberts

  1. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., the next US President, is a descendant of Lionel Duke of Clarence and John of Gaunt through his English Biden, Beaumont, Kaye, Mauleverer, Markenfield, Gascoigne and Percy ancestors.

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