A royal descent is a demonstrated descent of a person from a monarch. Due to the exponential number of ancestors going back in time, such descents are more common than many people realize, but at the same they are not pervasive either, nor are descents always easily proven when they do exist, and the subject is fraught with false claims. Royal descents are frequently sought after in genealogy, not as much for bragging as because European royal families tend to be well-documented far back in time and interrelated, so that such a descent hooks one into a large number of ancestors, and any two people with European royal descent can generally be found to be related. As such, they may be better thought of as deep documented descents, where a certain depth of European ancestry can only be obtained by connecting to royal dynasties.
There are many resources which provide lists of American immigrants known to have royal descent, although they vary in credibility and so should be treated with caution.
Over the years, I investigated several claimed royal descents from my known ancestors, but until recently none held up as proven, and many were easily disproven. This task, however, has not been a priority; long descents are more likely to have errors, so I generally concentrate on more recent relations, with an emphasis on those that can be verified with DNA. Furthermore, verifying such descents requires interpretation of medieval records, which is outside my expertise.
I do, however, have several promising leads. And, in the spring of 2024, I discovered in rapid succession two convincing such descents.
I have two descents from Great Migration immigrant William Hoskins, who came to America in 1634 from Ireland. He is an ancestor of both parents of Mercy Hoskins, mother of Elijah Crossman, and is thereby both my 9th- and 10th-great grandfather. In 2023, amateur genealogists assembled convincing evidence of his descent from the noble Cheney family of Woodhay, Berkshire, particularly Dorothy (Cheney) Polden, William’s purported matrilineal great-grandmother, who appears to have multiple descents from prominent medieval families. Particularly, Dorothy’s great-great-grandmother Agnes/Anne (Wingfield) Fremingham is documented in standard reference works as a 4th-great-granddaughter of Edward I, King of England. This monarch is thereby my 22nd- and 23th-great-grandfather.
To my knowledge, no professional genealogist or medieval scholar has weighed in on this line of descent. It is rather new so may have gotten little attention. However, the evidence I have seen looks quite convincing.
I am working on hardening the confirmation of my generations leading up to William.
I have linked Reuben Bingham as my ancestor, although the evidence for that generation remains circumstantial. Reuben is traced back⟮1⟯⟮2⟯ to immigrant Richard Smith and his wife Joanna Quarles, daughter of famous English poet Francis Quarles. Joanna was found to have royal ancestry in a 2019 article in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register.⟮3⟯ Specifically, she descends from John Sutton, the first Baron Dudley, a probable descendant of King Edward I, and his wife Elizabeth de Berkeley, a descendant of King John.
The former makes Edward I my 25th-great-grandfather. However, one of these generations is in dispute; but the fact that this family is connected to royalty is not. The latter makes King John (grandfather of Edward) also my 25th-great-grandfather.
My ancestor John Sutton, son of the above John Sutton, married Elizabeth Bramshot, who also seems to have deep ancestry, probably also including some royal.
There are three relevant open questions in this family.
There is a theory that William Latimer’s “son” John I am descended from is actually his grandson, and his mother was from a Griffin family with royal descent.⟮4⟯
The widow of William’s father-in-law Walter Ledet was named Ermentrude, but it is uncertain whether she was the mother of his children or a later wife. She appears to be Ermentrude de Lisle, who is said to have royal descent (although I have not investigated this myself due to these uncertainties).
Finally, Edith Latimer’s husband John Greene is known to belong to the prominent Greene family, but his place in it has not been found. His parents have been guessed as Thomas Greene and Mathilda Throckmorton, which would give him royal descent.
I lack the expertise to form an opinion on these remote persons. I would expect them to get attention due to being ancestral to Mayflower passenger Henry Samson, but there does not appear to be any recent research.
My immigrant 9th-great-grandfather Samuel Hotchkiss (ancestor of Phebe Cossitt) was the son of John Hotchkiss (✝1666) and Margaret Nevett (✝1656). Margaret’s ancestry can be traced back 12 generations to a Hamon de Tittleburgh, my 22nd-great-grandfather, but not to any royal ancestry.⟮5⟯
However, John is conjectured to be the same John Hotchkiss who appears in a Shropshire visitation, the son of Allen Hotchkiss and Mary Cotton. This appears to provide a royal descent.
There may have been more recent research to support this connection. Past postings on medieval mailing lists had considered the John in the visitation too old for the identification to be likely.
I have a proven but unknown descent from the Rich family, and there is a good chance that it goes through Elisha Rich (* 1718-02-23) born in Mendon, Massachusetts. His wife and the mother of his children was Mary Davis (* 1717-07-18).
Mary’s mother has credible ancestry going back into medieval Welsh nobility, and one published descent from royalty. There are doubts about this line I have not looked into.
There are also two claimed royal descents through Mary’s father Samuel Davis. One of them is based on wrong parents for Mary (Camp) Curtis of Nazeing (
False royal descents of my ancestors may be found, which are worth noting:
Another bizarre false claim is that in American presidential elections, the candidate with the most royal descent has always won.⟮7⟯ Little examination will reveal this is untrue.
An idea I am toying with is what I call a royal-only pedigree or simply a royal pedigree. It consists of the reduction of a pedigree to only those people both of whose parents have royal descent. This in a sense identifies the key nodes in deep pedigrees.
The definition of a royal pedigree may be trickier in early medieval times. As discussed above, royal descents serve as a proxy for deep documented descents, but early royals may not have particularly deep descents, so there’s a question where to cut it off. My thought is that the criterion should be descent from a few common antecedents from different regions. After some experimentation about who carried the most information, I got good results by requiring only two: Charlemagne and Fergus Mór. This is only a possible criterion, and others might prove better, or if errors in alleged descents are found, it might turn out not as good.
There is also a problem that descent claims are not always credible, and I am not able to assess the hundreds which are defining of the pedigree, and which often involve more obscure spouses. Below, I made intuitive choices to both accept and reject certain claims, which are easily subject to revision.
Here is the current draft of the start of my royal pedigree, with each entry annotated with the number of actual generations:
Entries are empty, notated with a dash, not because they are unknown, but because the pedigree ends there, with no further ancestors meeting the criterion.
Also note how quickly I get a repeat.