TENS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS Descended from 17th-Century Colonial Governor
“Over 650 immigrants to the American colonies have carried royal ancestry to their descendants. More than 165 of them settled in New England, and 387 came here in the colonial period. Of these latter immigrants, moreover, 180 left 10 or more descendants who were notable in American history. Not only does Massachusetts Governor Thomas Dudley (1576-1653) belong to these groups of 650, 165, 387, and 180; Dudley was also among the more than 650 immigrants of royal descent, the forebear of the largest and most distinguished royal descent, the forebear of the largest and most distinguished progeny. His descendants may even compose the largest illustrious progeny of any immigrant in American history, and a reasonable estimate of contemporary American descendants might well lie between 10 and 30 million.”
Thus begins Gary Boyd Roberts’s Foreword to the revised and greatly expanded Second Edition of Marston Watson’s ROYAL FAMILIES: Americans of Royal and Noble Ancestry. Volume One: Governor THOMAS DUDLEY and His Descendants through Five Generations.
The expanded Volume One is only the first volume in Mr. Watson’s four-volume series (see below) on royal families. The expanded book improves on the original Volume I by adding a Barbados Woodbridge branch and more extensive data on a large number of fourth-, fifth- and even sixth-generation descendants of the royal governor. According to Mr. Roberts, “with 900 additional names in the index, the Dudley book not only supersedes its predecessor but also becomes the authoritative work on its subject.”
Whether or not you own a copy of the original DUDLEY volume, you will want to get your hands on the more illuminating Second Edition. After all, a connection to Governor Dudley brings with it a proven line to William the Conqueror–a full 18 generations away!
