Charles Henry Browning (1846 - 1926)

Born 5 Aug 1846 in Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio, United States

Ancestors

Died 4 Jun 1926 at age 79 in Berwyn, Chester, Pennsylvania, United States

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Biography

Charles Browning is Notable.

"The meeting also took note of the publication of a book entitled Americans of Royal Descent edited by Charles Henry Browning in 1883, esteeming it worthy of praise as a first effort in this line by an American. Browning was a Pennsylvania genealogist and a member of the Aryan Order who made his living off the fashion for royal lineage among Americans who publicized their actual or imagined descent from royal or noble blood [...], relying on the notion of heredity to legitimize their claims to social superiority...' Inspired by Browning, with whom he was already collaborating in 1879, Forsyth embarked on a lifelong genealogical journey that would ultimately turn him into a descendant of Charlemagne and Odin. Already claiming descent from the noble Clan Forsyth, he started styling himself Viscount de Fronsac in the late 1880s. A testament to Forsyth’s francophilia, this spurious title was based on the phonetic consonance between the surname Forsyth and the southwestern French place name Forsath that he found in an American edition of the 14th century Chronicles of Jean Froissart. ... BROWNING, Charles Henry (1846-1926), American genealogist and publisher, b. Cincinnati OH, d. Devon PA; editor in chief of American Historical Register and publisher of Americans of Royal descent and other genealogical studies..." ^[1]

"Browning was not just any genealogist. He specialised in tracing royal descents for the Gilded Age magnates of the American East Coast and in 1883 he published the first fruits of his research, a volume simply entitled Americans of Royal Descent... Browning is not much remembered now, or, if he is, it’s only to be reviled as the author of the famously inaccurate Welsh Settlement of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1912). His archives lie, hopefully not mouldering but certainly unread, in the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress. But he started something that’s still with us today: the intense, unique, and sometimes baffling fascination that American genealogists have for 'royal descents'..." ^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ "'The Aryan Order of America and the College of Arms of Canada 1880-1937', by Yves Drolet; Montreal, Canada, 2015, pp. 25, 73."
2. ↑ "A Scots Genealogical Miscellany: 'A Philadelphia Newspaperman Founds a Discipline: Some Thoughts on the American Fascination with ‘Royal Descents’, by Kelsey Jackson Williams; Nov. 11, 2013."

• "'A History and Genealogy of the Warren Family in Normandy, Great Britain and...", by Thomas Warren; privately pulished; 1902, p. 258."

• "'Irish Pedigrees: Or, The Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation, Volume 2', by John O'Hart; J. Duffy and Company; Ireland; 1892, p. 527."

• "'The Coppage-Coppedge family, 1542-1955', by Manahan, John Eacott and Coppage, A. Maxim (Arthur Maxim); Commonwealth Press; Virginia, USA; 1955, p. 47."

• "Wikipedia: 'Nicolas Denys - Falsified Genealogies'"

• Death Certificate

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