General Royal Genealogical questions

[WarHiker]

I'm curious how common it is to have a Great great great (to alot) power grandfather that is royal?

How common is it to have multiple royal ancestors?

Should I feel special, or is it VERY VERY common?

I have these connections on many different levels of my heritage?
Does it matter which royal family?
Does it matter how far back?

I'm pretty new into looking my past, as one of my royal connections was highly debated. But, I'm proud to have found more that is not debated.

Wouldn't this give creedence to the debated connection?

Thanks for the replies in advance.
I'm not sure if I posted this in the right section.

[Mermaid1962]

One rule in genealogy is to have solid sources which can be objectively confirmed. Don't assume that a connection is there because it appears to be there. Try to get a document to back up every connection you make. That's hard to do if you're going into the distant past for your ancestors. There's a theory that Europeans are all descendants of Charlemagne, for example:Charlemagne’s DNA and Our Universal Royalty – Phenomena

So my advice is: prove what you can by documentation. I find that people in genealogy are very happy to help other people who are searching. If you can link in with research that's already been done, you'll be able to confirm more of your background.

If you definitely find many royal ancestors in the recent past (the past few centuries), then I think that you are special indeed.

[Grandma828]

Have fun with the search. Invest in a good genealogy program so you can attach copies of all source documents. Be sure to list all sources with vol. and page number. Start with yourself and work backwards. Prove, prove, prove. With the fact that names were repeated in families make sure you have the correct one. Sometimes it can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.

[WarHiker]

Well, I have lots of sources.
An using ancestry. Com
I understand that many records
Are user made, but I am focusing on the official

While I trust my findings, I really need a second opinion.
And I can't afford a professional.

If anyone knows someone who can verify,
I will be forever Grateful.

I believe someone can evaluate my tree online,
But am unsure how that works.

[Lee-Z]

Originally Posted by WarHiker

Well, I have lots of sources.
An using ancestry. Com
I understand that many records
Are user made, but I am focusing on the official

While I trust my findings, I really need a second opinion.
And I can't afford a professional.

If anyone knows someone who can verify,
I will be forever Grateful.

I believe someone can evaluate my tree online,
But am unsure how that works.

You are right, you should always verify usermade records by the original source (if only for typing errors etc. which could throw you way off course).
Also: please note that even the old records can be wrong sometimes because of writing errors etc. I have a person in my family who was born a couple of years after the death of their father, but on further looking into the actual baptism books, it turned out that the birth was scribbled on a separate piece of paper that was put at the back of the baptism book and therefore it seemed that the piece was the continuation of the end of the book). The handwriting on this piece however was different than at the end of the book, and when I looked into the other births on that piece of paper (from other families), found out that all these births had actually occured a few years earlier...
I've also seen happen that the father's or mother's name were accidently switched around or that the grandfather's name was put there, so even on original records, always be aware there could be mistakes..
With children born out of wedlock, the biological father was not always known, sometimes it's scribbled in between the lines with pencil, but still: there was no DNA testing then, so there's always the chance that they got it wrong at the time. That said, even with children born *in* wedlock, you're not always sure that the actual father was mentioned (but that is very very difficult to trace)

Being decended from royalty is not very common, it still is something special if you find that in your family tree, but it depends a bit on where your ancestors came from; mine are from the south of the netherlands and have lived there for centuries, no royals ever lived there (not even close) so in my tree there are only farmers and peasants (and lots of them ).

If you *do* have royal ancestry, then the good news is that you can trace your line back a lot further than from a commoner, so that is something to look forward too

[WarHiker]

Thank you for the reply. I have noticed many errors in some of the user made trees. One common one is seeing the same man be listed as his father, with his wife being listed as his mother.

I have even found some problems in census records, with someone reading an H as a W. I am amazed that there are not more errors, with the cursive handwriting being a bit difficult to read.

The length of being able to trace back is quite interesting, and is one reason that I am looking for verification. As it stands right now, I traced one line back before Jesus.

I figure the best verifications that can be done will be done by SoAR (American Revolution) and BoMC (Magna Charta) that I am looking to join. I really just wanted verification before I submit official documents. However, I am sure they deal with false claims often.

This is a very interesting website. I look forward into delving into some old tradition and history. Where is the scholarship section for royals?

How does one determine royal status? I understand there are some different levels of royals (with the British being at the top). So far, I have been clued off more by titles of people (count/ess, Knight, Earl, etc.) and less by their name. Of course with a name like King of Turkey, it is quite easy to notice.

Most of my findings have been independent of my families own writings. I have our own history (from books), but this is what is "debated" in the genealogical community. I personally think that "the powers that be" have reason to deny certain claims (even if they are true). Ever since I was small I believed in this debated origin, but have realized that I will only truly know upon my own death.

Wow, sorry for the book that I have written.

[genegirl99]

Cite everything, no matter how official (birth, death, marriage records) or unofficial (family generated genealogies or you were told), even if you have a dozen sources attached to one person. The biggest mistake I made when I started was not citing everything.

[WarHiker]

I can see how citing sources is important.
Right now, that is one of the benefits of using the ancestry website (in my opinion), because of the strong link to census and birth/death records. No doubt I need to get some external collaboration, but I have SO MUCH work to do as it stands now.

I was surprised to see 20 hours of genie research costing 1500 to 2000 dollars. That is absurd!

[KittyAtlanta]

Why is it absurd? I know auto mechanics who make that much, when broken down into hours.


You get what you pay for.

[Ish]

Originally Posted by WarHiker

I'm curious how common it is to have a Great great great (to alot) power grandfather that is royal?



How common is it to have multiple royal ancestors?



Should I feel special, or is it VERY VERY common?



I have these connections on many different levels of my heritage?

Does it matter which royal family?

Does it matter how far back?



I'm pretty new into looking my past, as one of my royal connections was highly debated. But, I'm proud to have found more that is not debated.



Wouldn't this give creedence to the debated connection?



Thanks for the replies in advance.

I'm not sure if I posted this in the right section.

You raise a few interesting questions here...

Okay, to start, depending on the number of generations we're discussing it can be very uncommon (ie only 4 people in the world can verify that Queen Elizabeth II is their great-grandmother) to very common (ie It's believed that the majority of people of English descent are descended from Edward I, they just can't always show it).

Statistically speaking, every person of European descent alive today is descended from every person who lived during the reign of Charlemagne and still has living descendants; the idea there being that if you go back enough generations the number of ancestors you should have becomes greater than the population of a given area. For people primarily of European descent, that time range is about 1,000 years.

Originally Posted by WarHiker

How does one determine royal status? I understand there are some different levels of royals (with the British being at the top). So far, I have been clued off more by titles of people (count/ess, Knight, Earl, etc.) and less by their name. Of course with a name like King of Turkey, it is quite easy to notice.

What do you mean by "royal status"? If you're Royal you're Royal, if you're not you're not, and whether you are or you aren't is really determined by... Well, the realm and/or the house you belong to. The British RF themselves are no more Royal than the Spanish or Dutch RFs, or any other, although within the families themselves they might make some distinctions (ie some families have a lesser title for people who aren't in the direct line; HH instead of HRH).

As to other titles... Well again it depends on the realm, but typically a Duke (or Count, Earl, Knight, etc) isn't Royal. In Britain, you can be a Royal (in that you hold a Royal title), you can be a peer (holding a peerage), you can be a person who has received some other honour or rank (a knighthood, a military rank, etc), you can hold a title by courtesy because of your parent or spouse, or you can have no title at all. Sometimes you can combine them - Prince William is a Royal, who has a peerage, has a military rank, and has several additional honours, including being a Knight of the Garter.

There are exceptions; Luxembourg is a grand duchy not a kingdom, so the Grand Duke is a Royal. In Russia the children of a monarch were titles as Grand Dukes and Duchesses and were Royal, while members of the nobility held the title of Prince and were not Royal. As for the Russians and other non-reigning houses... Well they continue to have their rules regarding who is and is not Royal within them, but within the greater public some people still consider them Royal and others don't and sometimes someone who would consider one non-reigning family to be Royal might not consider another to be as such.

[WarHiker]

Mechanics don't make that much - they have to purchase supplies and tools. Sure, I understand that genealogists need to have access to certain things, but 70 to 100 an hour is very high for a field that has become essentially digitized. Granted, they will need to research lots of books, but those are accessible through the internet also. Perhaps I don't understand the scope of what the professionals do, but to me it seems like an absurd price.

I also don't understand how "you get what you pay for". Don't most people have access to the same records? Wouldn't this just take more time and dedication from someone to do it right? I'm not arguing, but I just can't understand that high of a price.

Is there much fraud in ancestry research, meaning people who sell services but don't deliver as promised? I could see this being a factor that drives prices up - but still... that is a ton of money. I expected around 40 an hour, not double that.

[WarHiker]

Ish, thanks for your reply.
You are showing me how little that I truly know about hierarchy.

[Ish]

Not a problem.

In Britain, the system is a bit complicated. From a legal standpoint there are three types of people - the monarch, the peers, and the commons. Anyone who is not either the monarch or a peer is a commoner. This can be seen in the division of parliament; the monarch is unable to sit in either House, the Peers hold seats in the House of Lords (or they did, I'm not entirely sure how the system works now, but up until the reforms began, if you were a peer you had a seat in the House of Lords), and the commoners are elected as MPs to sit in the House of Commons - anyone who does not hold a peerage or is the monarch, even a Royal in theory, can run for election to the House of Commons.

Within royals, the order of precedent is divided by gender; the monarch and his/her spouse is at the top of their respective genders (and the monarch is the only person that outranks their spouse). For the male precedent, rank tends to go the monarch's son, the monarch's grandson, etc, in the order of birth (the elder son coming before the younger son, who comes before the elder son's eldest son, with the youngest son's youngest son being last), then the monarch's siblings, cousin's, etc - the further away in relation to the monarch you are, the further down in the precedent you are. I'm not entirely sure, but I would assume that the husbands of any women would come after the woman's brothers (so I would guess that Tim would come after Edward, but this is a guess and I'm sure Bertie can correct me). In practice we sometimes see the direct-line taking precedent over the younger sons - so William will sometimes take precedent over Andrew. Similar follows with the women; the daughters of the monarch come first, then the daughters-in-law, then the granddaughters, then the granddaughters-in-law, etc. For the in-laws, if they arrive at an event with their husband, they take their precedent from him instead of their own; likewise if a child does something with a parent they'll likely take their parent's precedent.

For the peerage, within Britain the highest is the Dukes, followed by Marques, Earls, Viscounts, Barons, then Baronets. The Prince of Wales comes first, then royal dukedoms - that is the Dukes who are also Royal - and then it's based on what realm the title is from and how old the title is - English titles come first, then Scottish ones, then Great Britain, then Ireland, then the UK.

[genegirl99]

Originally Posted by WarHiker

Mechanics don't make that much - they have to purchase supplies and tools. Sure, I understand that genealogists need to have access to certain things, but 70 to 100 an hour is very high for a field that has become essentially digitized. Granted, they will need to research lots of books, but those are accessible through the internet also. Perhaps I don't understand the scope of what the professionals do, but to me it seems like an absurd price.

I also don't understand how "you get what you pay for". Don't most people have access to the same records? Wouldn't this just take more time and dedication from someone to do it right? I'm not arguing, but I just can't understand that high of a price.

Is there much fraud in ancestry research, meaning people who sell services but don't deliver as promised? I could see this being a factor that drives prices up - but still... that is a ton of money. I expected around 40 an hour, not double that.

It's probably a combination of time, mileage reimbursement/gas, paying for copies of vital records, obituaries, etc... Believe me, on on one trip to the courthouse my dad and I spent $52 for death and birth records. Getting vital records can add up pretty fast. Last spring I was charged $9.00 for three obituaries from an out of state library.

No, not everyone has access to the same records, depending on the state. You may have to prove you're directly related to someone or get that person's written permission before the clerk will release the records. It really depends on the state. I love Missouri because some of their older death records have been digitized. I love Texas because their birth index for the 1970's is on Ancestry, which I how I was able to prove that Drew Brees is my cousin.

Not everything is available whether it has to do with funding of a digitization project or records haven't been found yet. I'm still waiting for my great-grandma's birth record to get digitized. She was born in what is now Ukraine, but the record is found in a Russian Archive. She had an older brother and I found the record from him, but not her's...yet... You have to be willing to wait before you're able to break down a brickwall. But that's why you have other family lines to work on. :) I'm working on both sides of my family and when I smack a brickwall with one side I work on another.

I use a combination of Ancestry (when I'm at the library), FamilySearch.com, Findagrave.com, Facebook and Google. You'd be shocked to see what you could find through Google. I downloaded a few family history books through Google, figure out who my 3rd-great grandma's parents were, and found a history of my 3rd great-grandpa.

[WarHiker]

the prices that I listed were for Ancestry.com's own professional genis. For this reason, I thought they would not seek paper records, yet hinge upon ancestry's digital records. Of course, this could be one place where I underestimate the difficulty.

I'm sure it also is tough to wade through the piles of incorrect ties that other users have put together. I see so many duplicate spouses and children that it is sickening. I guess many people just copy other's information without checking them or at least viewing the date. Sure, their father was born after they were..... makes me laugh.

I think doing geni work for people would be a fun side job.

[CyrilVladisla]

When you are writing down names of people, first names or surnames, be certain to copy the spelling exactly as it is written.
Sometimes you come across so many variations of the spelling, you may assume it is not the same person. However, it may just be the same person!

[Tarlita]

Your local LDS church may be of great help to you. They have the best source of Genealogy anywhere. Altho they don't record deaths the christenings and marriages are a great help. They have over a billion names listed. Give them a go. You should at least find them very helpful. Our LDS church works on donations they don't charge a fee. The people there are very keen volunteers.

Also we have a website named Trove that has old newspapers scanned. You must have a site in the US or elsewhere that does the same. We just type in a name and find lots of useful stuff about a person.

[WarHiker]

Thank You Tarlita. I hadn't considered the LDS previously.

[Ana Von Cleves]

If you live in a town that has an LDS temple, they is probably an LDS genealogy center nearby. It will be called the Family History Center.

They will love to help you.

On the question of royal ancestry, I once heard a British professor of history theorize that the reason that distant descent was so common was because of the black death. I don't know if I agree with that entirely. We are talking about a class of men who, by and large, knew no restrictions on their less than moral behavior. They all thought that any woman equal to themselves or lower, not blood related and not a nun, was available. And there are some exceptions to that. Those women on a lower social scale had little choice, depending on the power of the man in question. And all this in times when there was zero birth control. Even in this modern era, some royal men and women have managed to produce children without benefit of a spouse.

So, as a born and bred LDS woman who has read a lot of family group sheets, I can tell you that royal descent found several generations back is very common. The closer you get to the here and now, the rarer.
I am no genealogist, by the way. I never got much into it.
Though I have helped out with some record gathering projects. It can be fascinating and tragic reading. I was given a pile of photo copied death records from an old west town.....shootouts, suicide, toddlers turning boiling cauldrons over on themselves. WOW. I also had some ledgers from Ellis Island. These were at a time when the records were hand written. You could really tell when the clerk was fresh in the morning and when he was tired out in the afternoon. The idea was to type the entries out on cards for digitizing. These cards went through many checks. I was just the first step.

Happy New Year!!

[WarHiker]

I don't know how helpful the LDS would really be, especially if they only have hand written information. I am in a part of the country, where none of my ancestors lived. All of their records would be on the east coast, and I am in the south west. So......... I think I will need to stay online and use digital sources.

I did notice that several of my lines go through the wives, so this is not as strong as if they were to go directly through the male lines. This has really been a great finding of mine, and I look forward to verifying things.