The new Second Edition of The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or to the United States, by Gary Boyd Roberts, identifies 615 major historical figures who have royal ancestry. Does your family talk about an as yet unproven relationship to the English playwright Noel Coward? If you want to authenticate[…]Read more
The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or the United States (RD 900), 2nd Ed. (2022), genealogist Gary Boyd Roberts’ magnum opus, identifies an awe-inspiring number of historical figures from Continental Europe, the British Isles, or the United States who are related to millions of living Americans. Anyone descended from an[…]Read more
I have been gratified by Americans’ interest in The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or the United States since its publication in 2018. I am surprised, however, at the response the work has received in Great Britain and continental Europe. The late Prince Phillip appears several times and, in addition[…]Read more
One of the stellar works in our collection of royal and noble ancestry books is the 1996 publication, Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century Colonists, by David Faris. As the subtitle explains, this work traces the descent from England’s kings Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III to British emigrants who arrived in the North[…]Read more
(Part One of this article can be found HERE) In early November 2022, various scholars learned of and purchased Weston Pedigree Reconsidered: A Review of Documentation Provided by the College of Arms (2022) by Shawn Henry Potter and Lois Carol Potter. In a much earlier form, parts of this monograph were submitted to the New[…]Read more
The system of primogeniture, the medieval practice of passing down a title and its holdings to one’s eldest son (or daughter), accounts for the fact that many Americans have royal or noble ancestors. For example, the millions of descendants of the 970 immigrant ancestors discussed in the 2018 edition of Gary Boyd Roberts’ book, The[…]Read more
Readers familiar with Gary Boyd Roberts’ scholarship know that between 2004 and 2010, Mr. Roberts wrote smaller, earlier editions of his now magnum opus, The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants to the American Colonies, Quebec, or the United States (2018). The earliest edition of the work covered the royal descents of 500 immigrants. Mr. Roberts[…]Read more
What do you and Prince Harry and HRH Prince William have in common? The exciting possibility is that you and they are cousins, as well as cousins to both of their royal parents. In the film The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Mary Boleyn is depicted as having had a five-year relationship as the mistress of Henry VIII, King of England, despite her marriage to William[…]Read more
After the new edition of The Royal Descents of 900 Immigrants went to press, HM Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain (see pp. 3, 4, 41, 321, 323, 546, 930, 1058, 1067, 1081, 1723) died 8 September 2022, aged 96. Her eldest son, HRH Prince Charles Philip Arthur George (now 73), previously Prince of Wales, became HM[…]Read more
Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson, the 17th-century Puritan heretic and co-founder of Rhode Island, died in an Indian attack with several of her children only nine years after she arrived in America. Her surviving four children and the children of her sister Katherine (Marbury) Scott produced many descendants with royal or noble ancestors. For example, their American[…]Read more
What do you and Prince Harry and HRH Prince William have in common? The exciting possibility is that you and they are cousins, as well as cousins to both of their royal parents. In the film The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Mary Boleyn is depicted as having had a five-year relationship as mistress of Henry VIII, King of England–despite her marriage to William Carey, Gentleman[…]Read more
Royalty and titled nobility in America? Not exactly. No titles of duke, marquess, earl, viscount or baron are bestowed on men, nor titles of duchess, marchioness, countess, viscountess and baroness are granted to women in the United States of America. Nevertheless, hundreds of our seventeenth-century immigrants shed their noble titles for freedom from religious persecution or economic restrictions. Most of these[…]Read more
