Heritage Album

how common is it to have a lot of different kings as ancestors?

i have been researching my family tree and traced it back to a lot of different kings, queens, counts, earls, lords, etc...if i had to guess it would be around a dozen kings ranging from england to france, to italy, to norway. i am just wondering how common that is?

Public Comments

1. You might have sprung from a very limited gene pool. Royals often married their cousins. It accounts for a higher percentage of genetic anomalies in royal families (and bad teeth).
2. Not too common. Are you sure of your research?
3. It is very, very common. In this day and age, for example, it would be unusual to find someone of British descent who COULDN'T trace his or her ancestry back to some medieval royal or aristocrat. Population totals were low back then, and people were much more closely related than we realize, especially since families rose and fell: a sheep farmer's family in the 14th century might have had a descendant who ended up as an Earl in the 17th. (In fact, that's exactly what happened to the family of Lady Diana Spencer, later the Princess of Wales. While her 14th-century ancestors were farming, her husband's were occupying the throne, and who knows where those farmers spread their genes? Many people today would, therefore, be distant cousins of Princes William and Harry.) In addition, more than one king and aristocrat fathered bunches of illegitimate children, many of whom were given titles. Others were not titled, but their lineage remained known. We are all related, to a greater or lesser degree, as expert genealogists continually point out.
4. Okay, once you link up to a royal house you will have multiple royalty usually from different nations in your family tree. They married across national boundaries. All you usually have to do is find the one gateway ancestor. Most people who have English lines going back to early colonial days in the American South can usually find at least one gateway ancestor, most of the time several gateway ancestors. This includes people of very humble means. However, when you said you traced your family. Do you have the actual documentation or are you taking the Information from someone else's family tree online? Information in family trees online are seldom documented. You frequently will see different information on the same people from different subscribers. Then you will see the same information on the same people from different subscribers but that doesn't mean for one moment the information is correct. Too many people copy without verifying. For instance there are genealogies linking the British Royal Family to the Royal line of David but they are based on speculation and jumping to a conclusion. A lot of the genealogies will not meet professional standards for documentation. Now there are a lot of people who will never find a gateway ancestor to a royal or noble family but some place way back down the line they very likely did have royal ancestors. As the family lines extend out some people just dropped out of the official records for those royal or noble families. For instance Princess Dianna and Parker-Bowles both had royal ancestors but they were considered commoners. Many say the law of probability that almost all Europeans are descended from Charlemagne. There were less than 250 million people in the world when he reigned and even far less in Europe. Many people today going back to the time of Charlemagne will do so in 40 generations in some of their lines. 40 generations includes 2 parents, 4 grandparents and up through your 38xgreat grandparents. If each one of those 38xgreat grandparents were a different person they would total over 1 trillion, 162 billion people. You see it doubles up each generation and begins to pyramid big time.
5. That's actually a good question. I have some Italian ancestry from the region of Piedmont in Italy which was also founded by the royal house of Savoia which had apparently ruled for over 1000 years in Italy and unified the country. I am kinda curious myself if my ancestors had any involvement in royalty and what the citizens of Piedmont's relationship to that past is. But to answer your question I am not sure lol.
6. I once read that literally half of Europe can trace its ancestry back to Charlemagne. I don't have any kings but if the familysearch.org is to be trusted (it's not) then I have some Irish chancellor in my ancestry.
7. It is very common. In fact, it is the rule, not the exception. I would be surprised if anyone of European ancestry did not have many royal ancestors. I know I have many. In fact, after a certain point, they are all royal from that point and going back.
8. It is likely that you have royal ancestry because of the sheer number of ancestors you have. You have four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and it keeps doubling every generation. At 30 generations you will have 8,589,934,592 direct parents alone, not counting ancillary relatives. That is more people than have ever lived on the earth.