Question

Is it true that most people of European, especially British, have some royal ancestors?

Comments

I think you mean ancestors.

According to WikiTree, jjust as point of reference I apparently have 130 lines of descent from William the Conqueror, the shortest of which is 28 generations. This based on my paternal side only.

I don’t know how many descendants he has, but saw one estimate that he could have 50,000,000 in the US alone.

Looking at Charlemagne, which is back another couple of hundred years, and an ancestor of William, I apparently have over 22,000 lines of descent.

In the 20th generation back a person has, theoretically, over 500,000 ancestors.

So, with these kinds of numbers, descent from (remote) royalty is a pretty common occurrence.

Caveat: many of these lines of descent are of unknown confidence.

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Oops! My stroke brain is still not working properly. Fixed it.

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Sorry about that. Stroke brain gets words confused.

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This happens from time to time, and it is clear what you meant.

I hope you continue to get better!

Answer 1

And you are the 35th great granddaughter of Carolingian-77 (Uncertain).

Answer 2

Everybody is going to claim descent from a Royal, if they think they can- there are many cases of made-up heritage.  It is why we want sources here in WT.

That being said, the most sources you will find will be about the wealthy/powerful.  Back in the days before universal census data, who is going to record the lives of the serfs, when they might make a little money recording the lives of the people living in the castle...

Or maybe those in the castle wanted to record the serfs so they could collect their tithe...

Comments

To assume that everyone is descendant of royal or famous people is to ignore the fact that the millions of peasants and serfs intermarried with other peasants and serfs, and that wealthy, noble and royal folks intermarried with other wealthy and noble folks. So their descent and ascent genealogies would have a lot of pedigree collapse, and certainly not much expansion. I can go back 400 years on most of my ancestral lines, and they were all very common folks. I suspect that if each of those ancestors could trace back another 400 or 500 years the story would be much the same.  I do not need some royal ancestors to feel very proud of my heritage.

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I'm sure my tree is much the same!

Answer 3

Lots of places outside Europe have royalty as well, so worldwide most everyone is descended from some kind of royal or another.

As always, I, as the resident contrarian of Wikitree, feel compelled to point out that there is nothing 'special' or 'exalted' about royal ancestry; royalty are not some breed apart, or magical fairytale people, they are merely history's most successful robber barons, and IMHO the most interesting aspect about them, genealogically, is that there are more records for them than for other people of the distant past. I don't consider the 'point' of genealogy to be to connect to royalty. They simply make a convenient group to use as a lode to connect the Big Tree.

Comments

First I have seen to actually claim the title of resident contrarian, but you'd better wave that flag high because theres probably about a million of us that might claim it as well...  Enjoy your day of fame!

Agree completely!

Answer 4

Yes.

Yes, you are probably descended from royalty. So is everyone else.

How millions don't know they're related to royalty

Do You Have Royal Ancestors? 6 Steps to Find Out

Is Everyone a Descendant of Royalty? (YouTube)

On genes, ancestry, and why we’re all descended from royalty

and many more...