8 minute read
True blue
Don’t fall for internet mistakes. For blue-blooded connections you can rely on, you can’t beat a trusted book
Words by ANTHONY ADOLPH
Have you ever played ‘pluses and minuses’? Against When immersed in the works of the great, professional everything one player says as a plus, the other player genealogists of the past, who distilled these reliable sources to must think of a minus. For example – plus: ‘most find the most interesting lines, you can feel in very safe hands people of British descent have British royal blood through indeed. One such was Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, 11th one of their lines of ancestry’. Minus: ‘in most cases, it’s baronet, 24th Chief of the Moncreiffe clan, Her extremely hard to work out which line that might be’. Majesty’s Unicorn Pursuivant of Arms and later Albany Plus: ‘the internet has made finding those lines from Herald of Arms (1919-1985). Among his books is Blood royalty much easier’. Minus: ‘many of the purported royal Royal (Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1956), a short book descents on the internet are wrong’. Plus: ‘but amongst all about the origins and purpose of monarchy, including Queen the dross, some lines are correct’. Minus: ‘it’s virtually impos- Elizabeth II’s main lines of descent from the Ancient Britons; sible, on first glance, to work out which are right, and which the Picts and Scots; the Anglo-Saxons; Normans, and (for fun, are wrong’. Plus: ‘at least once you’ve found a possible route, but accurately) Mohammed II, the Arab King of Seville in the you can research it vigorously to see if it’s accurate’. Minus: Middle Ages. The book’s charm rests in its lively illustrations ‘most royal blood is a long way back and trying to verify so by Don Pottinger, who invested the names of the ancient kings far is very difficult’. Plus: ‘for the early period, there are some with humorous personalities based on his intimate knowledge excellent, reliable sources that do the job for you’. of the sources. This is genealogy as it ought to be. Two such printed sources are on my desk now and are the Another of Sir Iain’s books, Royal Highness: Ancestry reason I wanted to write this. Many people now encounter of the Royal Child (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1982), blue-blooded lines of descent via online pedigrees, but they was produced in anticipation of the birth of Prince William. have all the charm of Illustrated this time with photographs, portraits and images tax demands, and have from old records, this book explored the foregoing royal The chances of coming across often been keyed in by people who don’t really lines in more detail and also explored some of the Royal Family’s descents from the rulers of other countries. false information does not understand how titles were used. Sir Iain also mined the rich genealogies of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Diana, Princess of Wales. The Queen disappear, but it is far less Sir Hector Molebag, Mother, for instance, had a descent via the Porteus family knight, of Glenmole, from Col. Augustine Warner of Virginia, who was also great ends up in an online grandfather of George Washington, and Diana had direct genealogy as ‘Molebag, Hector de Glenmole, Sir Knight’, or lines back to Mary, Queen of Scots. some similar nonsense, and all the charm (and accuracy) is If you can, properly, prove a line of descent back to blue lost. Many of the more recent lines purporting to go back to blood, then books like these will allow you to explore the blue blood were pieced together recently from original interconnected pathways of royal blood with confidence, records, so they may or may not be properly proven. and enjoy the scenery along the way. And if you have not But most of the older blue-blooded lines to which they found your own genealogical route back to royalty yet, these connect – those of knights, baronets, barons, viscounts, earls, books will whet your appetite to do so like nothing else. S marquesses, dukes, princes and kings – come from old, reliable printed pedigrees, assembled with great care by proper genealogists, scholars, historians and heralds, and based in family records, memorial inscriptions, heraldic records such as the visitation pedigrees, wills, deeds and charters, and so on, which were published in county antiquarian histories, and well-researched volumes on the peerage. Once you can get in among those, the chances of coming across false information does not disappear, but it is far less.
Have your family history traced properly, using original, archival records, by a professional genealogist of more than 30 years’ experience. Anthony Adolph, genealogist, writer and broadcaster, is the author of 10 books, including Collins’ Tracing Your Scottish Family History (2008), and writer of the genealogy column for this magazine and its predecessor, Highlander magazine, since 2011. anthonyadolph.co.uk; mail@anthonyadolph.co.uk; 123 Victor Road, London, SE20 7JT; 07890 068218
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