When someone is listed as having proven royal descent, how can the viewer identify the line that has been proven? The technique that I've been using is to have Geni calculate their relationship to William the Conqueror, which identifies "a" line of descent. But a person is unlikely to have just one line of descent from royalty because of the way the royal/noble families intermarry, and the path that Geni finds is not necessarily the one that has been documented. For example Geni might show a path from some royal's illegitimate child that's based on hearsay, when the line that has been documented is legitimate.
I have a proven line from Eleanor Wallace and a certificate from the Plantagenet Society of the UK to prove it. I sent my line to them and they approved it. I also know others that sent their lines and were rejected because their line was wrong. This is my proven line:
Henry II King of England Plantagenet (1133 - 1189)
23rd great-grandfather
John I Lackland King of England Plantagenet (1166 - 1216)
son of Henry II King of England Plantagenet
Henry III King of England Plantagenet (1206 - 1272)
son of John I Lackland King of England Plantagenet
Edward I King Of England "Longshanks" Plantagenet (1239 - 1307)
son of Henry III King of England Plantagenet
Edward II England, King of England (1284 - 1327)
son of Edward I King Of England "Longshanks" Plantagenet
Edward III Plantagenet King of England
son of Edward II England, King of England
John of Gaunt Plantagenet Duke of Aquitaine 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340 - 1399)
son of Edward III Plantagenet King of England
John Beaufort 1st Earl of Somerset (1371 - 1410)
son of John of Gaunt Plantagenet Duke of Aquitaine 1st Duke of Lancaster
Joan "Queen Consort Scotland" de Beaufort (1404 - 1445)
daughter of John Beaufort 1st Earl of Somerset
John Stewart Sir 1st Earl of Atholl (1440 - 1512)
son of Joan "Queen Consort Scotland" de Beaufort
John 2nd Earl of Atholl Stewart Sir (1475 - 1513)
son of John Stewart Sir 1st Earl of Atholl
John Stewart 3rd Earl of Atholl (1507 - 1542)
son of John 2nd Earl of Atholl Stewart Sir
John Stewart Minto of Roxburghshire Scotland 4th Earl of Atholl Provost of Glasgow (1525 - 1579)
son of John Stewart 3rd Earl of Atholl
Agnes Stewart Lady (1558 - 1636)
daughter of John Stewart Minto of Roxburghshire Scotland 4th Earl of Atholl Provost of Glasgow
John Wallace (1581 - 1640)
son of Agnes Stewart Lady
John Wallace (1606 - )
son of John Wallace
Matthew Wallace (1640 - 1714)
son of John Wallace
James Wallace (1672 - 1740)
son of Matthew Wallace
Eleanor Wallace (1730 - 1800)
daughter of James Wallace
Alexander Hopkins (1766 - 1840)
son of Eleanor Wallace
Thomas Hopkins (1796 - 1868)
son of Alexander Hopkins
Adam P. Hopkins (1827 - 1907)
son of Thomas Hopkins
Mary Ada Hopkins (1853 - 1924)
daughter of Adam P. Hopkins
Harvey Hopkins McCune (1893 - 1966)
son of Mary Ada Hopkins
Harvey Carlson McCune (1920 - 1981)
son of Harvey Hopkins McCune
Patricia May McCune Patscheck
You are the daughter of Harvey Carlson McCune
Maybe I should give an example from my own family tree: Vincent Lowe Esq. is on the list of Southern Gateway Ancestors of Proven Royal Descent: Vincent Lowe, Esq.
When I look for his connection to William the Conqueror, it says William is Vincent's 14th great grandfather, and the only other crowned heads in the lineup are William's son Henry I and Henry's daughter Empress Maud, then 13 generations of much-less-famous people leading to Vincent Lowe. I'm not confident that this is the proven line of descent, and there might be another path that's more reliable.
Not at all a dumb question!
The project page lists a number of books that you can use as sources that give at least on proven line in detail which should be acceptable to any society. In a few cases a journal article is cited if the line is more recent than the book:
Richardson, Douglas. Plantagenet Ancestry, 3 vols. 2nd ed., (Salt Lake City, Utah: Douglas Richardson, 2011)
Richardson, Douglas. Magna Carta Ancestry, 4 vols. 2nd ed., (Salt Lake City, Utah: Douglas Richardson, 2011)
Richardson, Douglas. FASG. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed Kimball G Everingham. 5 Volumes (Salt Lake City, Utah: Douglas Richardson, 2013) Available on Amazon.
Roberts, Gary Boyd. The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States (Baltimore, 2008) The 2004 edition is available online at Ancestry.
Weis, Frederick Lewis, Walter Lee Sheppard, William R. Beall, and Kaleen E. Beall.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700. 8th ed. (Baltimore, 2004) Available online at Ancestry.
Weis, Frederick Lewis, Walter Lee Sheppard, and William R. Beall. The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215. 5th ed. (Baltimore, 1999) available online at Ancestry
Note the five volume work by Richardson includes all the lines in his previous work plus a few more. So it is one of the first places to check. Gary Boyd Roberts just updated his book to 900 lines but I haven't added that book yet. The additional lines he added over the 600 line version don't include many descendants in most cases. Richardson sell his five volumes on Amazon. Gary Boyd Roberts sell his on AmericanAncestors.org and other places. Several people on GENI have copies of these books as well.
Regarding the line via the descendants of Vincent Lowe and Anne Cavendish you can find it here on Ancestry.com's card catalog for Gary Boyd Robert's The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants p 300
https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/49324/FLHG_RoyalDescentsof600I...
If you want to look up other lines go to this page:
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/flhg-royaldescentsof600...
The line is actually via Anne Cavendish who was daughter of Henry Cavendish and Grace Talbot. You'll see the sources listed at the bottom and the abbreviations used are listed at the begging of the book.
Private User How did you prove there two people were the same person?
Matthew Wallace, Resident of Manokin in Colonial Maryland
Currently they are listed under spurious pedigrees. I just checked Gary Boyd Roberts latest books with 900 lines and this still isn't listed.
Thank you Roland Henry Baker, III! I don't have the books and Ancestry is hitting me with a paywall, but at least I know what to look for now.
Private User Correct Ancestry.com charges to access their card catalog. You can buy Gary Boyd Roberts two volume set here:
https://shop.americanancestors.org/products/the-royal-descents-of-9.... You can probably find his older 600 line book used cheaper. Which line are you most interested in? Perhaps I could do a look up for you.
Private User
I . Edward I, King of England, d. 1307 = Eleanor of Castile
2. Elizabeth Plantagenet= Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of
Hereford and Essex
3. Eleanor de Bohun = James Butler, I st Earl of Ormonde
4. Petronilla Butler= Gilbert Talbot, 3rd Baron Talbot
5. Richard Talbot, 4 th Baron Talbot= Ankaret le Strange
6. Mary Talbot= Sir Thomas Greene
7. Sir Thomas Greene (widower of Philippa Ferrers) =
Marina Beier
8. Anne Greene= Sir Thomas Pinchbeck
9. Elizabeth Pinchbeck = John Hardwick
10. John Hardwick= Elizabeth Leke
11. Elizabeth Hardwick, the well-known "Bess of Hardwick,"
Countess of Shrewsbury, adventuress, = Sir William Cavendish
(second of four husbands)
12. Henry Cavendish= Grace Talbot
13. (illegitimate by ----) Anne Cavendish = Vincent Lowe
14. Jane Lowe of Md.= (1) Henry Sewall, secretary of Md.,
SETH; (2) Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore (1637-1715),
colonial governor of Md., ARD, SETH.
14. John Lowe-: Catherine Pilkington
15. Nicholas Lowe of Md. = Mrs. Elizabeth Roe Combes
15. Henry Lowe of Md.= Mrs. Susannah Maria Bennett Darnall,
daughter of Richard Bennett, Jr. and Henrietta Maria Neale,
daughter of James Neale of Md., ARD, SETH, and Anna Maria
Gill. (Note: Nicholas and Vincent Lowe, younger brothers of
Lady Baltimore, also came to Md., and Vincent married
Elizabeth Foster. Neither brother, however, left NDTPS.)
Sources: PASCC 2:225-27 (Greene to Lowe), 157-58 (Greene), 348-49 (Talbot), 59 (Butler), 33-34 (Bohun); NGSQ 51 ( 1963):32-43 (Lowe) and The Reliquary 22(1881-82):242 (Hardwick); Lincolnshire Notes and 300
As to descent, most people who *can* trace their lines back to royalty find that they have to slog through a number of generations before they get as far as the lower squirearchy (untitled gentry of at best local importance). This makes sense, because people who had expectations in the Old Country were less likely to abandon them for life in a howling wilderness. :-)
The one known case of a (relatively minor) noble doing just that turns out to have been due to a combination of crushing disappointment in love and curiosity about a vast Virginia inheritance through his mother's side of the family. But Thomas, 6th Baron Fairfax of Cameron, never married and left no known descendants - the title went to his brother (who left no descendants either) and then into abeyance (twice) before somebody turned up in a collateral line who really wanted it.
I've seen mistakes on all the genealogy websites, and that goes for Geni too. So I take it all with a grain of salt, and look for whatever documentation is available.
The younger sons of the minor gentry sometimes had an incentive to come to the New World. They didn't have an inheritance of land to look forward to, and there was money to be made here if you had some funding from mom and dad to get you started. Plus there was an opportunity to be the most important person in town, which they didn't have in the old country, and to have adventures that weren't available in Europe.
There could be other reasons too. Matthew Howard was apparently from the noble Howard family (although no one can figure out who his parents were, and I really wish they would because he's in my family tree). But he was also a Puritan which was not approved of in England, so it was a good reason to leave.
Ruby Wright do you have any insights on the ancestry of "our" Matthew Howard? Because no one else seems to have a clue.
Too many people attach too much importance to the use of armorial devices in the Colonies. The catch is that the College of Arms never had any jurisdiction over the Colonies, and people were not slow to figure that out.
A few families of major importance played by the rules and got the College to authorize their right to their "family arms", or had a new coat of arms devised for them (the Scarburghs of Accomack went the latter route). Others just assumed arms that had been in their family (eg the Washingtons), or that had been used by a family with the same or a similar surname (eg the Dorseys, who had NO RIGHT to the D'Arcy arms but used them anyway), or that they just happened to like for whatever reason.
So no, usage of an armorial device is *not* guaranteed proof of a connection to an armigerous family.