Wednesday, August 27, 2014

My Descent From William I "the Conqueror," King of England

I posted Valerie Bertinelli is My Cousin on 14 August 2014 after the Who Do You Think You Are? episode which took Valerie's ancestry back to Edward I "Longshanks", King of England.

I recalled that I was also descended from William the Conqueror, according to the Gary Boyd Roberts book:

Gary Boyd Roberts, The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States, Who Were Themselves Notable or left Descendants Notable in American History, (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004).

I recently entered the line from William the Conqueror to Mary Gye into my RootsMagic database.

Here is my Relationship chart from William the Conqueror to myself.  The "Gateway Ancestor" is Mary Gye (1580-1666), who married Rev. John Maverick (1578-1636):







So William the Conqueror is my 26th great-grandfather.  But my latest English royal in this line is Henry III, my 23rd great-grandfather.

It will be interesting to see if the Geni tree will show me this line.  Or WikiTree.  Or FamilySearch Family Tree.  Do they reflect the lines of descent that are in the published books?  I hope so!  

Are you my cousin from these early English Kings through Mary Gye?  Or any of her ancestors?

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/08/my-descent-from-william-i-conqueror.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


6 comments:

Carrie Smith said...

Wonderful!

Unknown said...

Hi there! We are cousins as well! Distantly of course. We are also related to:
Erik the Red (vikings)
Leif Erikson (his son)
The Plantagenet family
Look at the Anjou's as well, I am sure you will find some linkage there. We are related also to Catherine of Aragon (Henry VIII's first wife) which was also Queen Isabella of Spain's daughter. There are Dukes and so on in between... Then in more modern times there is in my family; John Rogers, the martyr (very interesting person) and William Clark (of Lewis and Clark) as well as Martha Dandridge (Many know as Martha Washington, wife of George) and also President, James Monroe. There is on my side also a person that was on the Mayflower. There is so much more but that is just my Father's side. My mom's is just as interesting but still working on both sides and LOTS of paperwork. Most of all I am really enjoying the hunt although exhausting at times every-time I turn a corner I find something more and more interesting. If you would like keep in touch and we can exchange notes.

T said...

I don't know, nor do I care if I'm descended from royalty. I am even stopping my research where I am now. Once it's gone to the 1600s I don't know if what I find is real or not and I really don't care. By the time I got to 1800 I often couldn't find parents for those ancestors and if I did, those people were mostly just names and dates. It's been very difficult to find any kind of personal day to day information about them. There's even a huge gap in the Mayflower line. The passengers were documented to the nth degree but just a couple of generations later it was like pulling hen's teeth to find name, birth, death and half the time 1 or 2 husbands/wives and children. My focus has been on the person, their life and family and occupation. How did he support the 15 kids? Even kings had to have money. Where did it come from? I don't have a fascination with royal linage. I have found some very interesting personal information about 2x and 3x grandparents. Makes my cousins sit up and take notice for a few minutes before they yawn and their eyes glaze over. I want them to be real people that I would live liked or not. I wish I would have known all this stuff while my grandmother was still alive. And I sure would like a second chance to interview my parents. I'm finding the most difficult chapters to write are theirs and mine. It doesn't seem like there's anything to tell but there must be. How could I have lived and have nothing worth writing about happen my whole life? Someone else needs to write my story, I think.

Enno Borgsteede said...

According to Geni, William is my 26th great grandfather too, and we're 14th cousins, through Elizabeth Page (Bourchier).

And while we're on the subject of old British ancestry. What do you think of King Kenneth MacAlpin? See http://www.macalpineclan.com/clan-roll-call

Unknown said...

My 26th as well. Well wikitree shows me as far back as my 23rd Henry III

History Buff said...

The current (2020) professional genealogical consensus is that Mary (Gye) Maverick's line of descent from Henry III, King of England is broken, as it is considered unproven lacking the necessary evidence. Please see Douglas Richardson's Royal Ancestry series, Volume 3, pp. 183-184.

She does, however, still have a valid line of descent from Henry II, King of England through her Stukeley lines.

Hope this helps.