Do You Come From Royal Blood?

[moksha]

Do you come from Royal Blood? Your last name may tell you.

Do you think your family originated from the top 1 percent? According to a new study, if your ancestors had the names Smith, Kimball, Lecter, Young, Rasputin, or Richards, you may have the blood of Kings and High Priests running through your veins.

Want this confirmed? Visit Ancestry.com for further genetic testing to see if you are qualified to have a genuine porcelain throne installed in your backyard.

[oliver_denom]

It's like I tell people on reddit, bragging about royal ancestry doesn't make you special, it just makes you an asshole.

[crossmyheart]

IMG_6309001.jpg (232.16 KiB) Viewed 12281 times

Not sure if this attachment will work. I have a relative who is really into genealogy right now. Turns out I am distantly related to King Louis the VI "the fat" of France. The family resemblance is uncanny.

[Corsair]

It's like I tell people on reddit, bragging about royal ancestry doesn't make you special, it just makes you an asshole.

Right! I can be a jerk without any royal ancestry whatsoever.

[Red Ryder]

Nope. My ancestors were just poor immigrants caught up in a frontier sex cult.

[crossmyheart]

Nope. My ancestors were just poor immigrants caught up in a frontier sex cult.

OMG I am dying!

[wtfluff]

Nope. My ancestors were just poor immigrants caught up in a frontier sex cult.

Ah... Mormon Royalty!

[RubinHighlander]

Nope. My ancestors were just poor immigrants caught up in a frontier sex cult.

Ummmm, yeah. I qualify for this one. One of Parley P's wives was a McGregor. Then you can tie that back to some of the McGregor Clan crests that say "Royal is our blood." It wasn't much better back in the highlands, with tattooed Pictish folks running around naked.



Seems to me they were a royal pain in the ass!

[Red Ryder]

I see the resemblance RH!

[RubinHighlander]

I see the resemblance RH!

YES!

[Just This Guy]

According to my dad, we are direct descendants from some minor noble in England in the 15th century. This family was 1st cousins to one Anne Boleyn. Of course, when that went sour, they lost their title. So just keep your head down...

However, I tend to take that with a major grain of salt. When my dad researches family history, he seems to link to the most interesting possible ancestor, not the most likely. So I think there is very high likelihood of error in that family tree. That does bring up concerns with this whole amature genealogy thing the church pushes. When you have a whole bunch of average joe's out doing this with little to no training and even less cross checking, there is a huge potential for error.

[Hagoth]

One thing to remember when people claim to come from royalty, be descended from Vikings, etc. is that if you have any European ancestry at all you are descended from EVERYONE who lived in Europe 1000 years ago. That's how interwoven the ancestry is.

[2bizE]

Nope. My ancestors were just poor immigrants caught up in a frontier sex cult.

Mine, too.
Wish i could go back in time and tell them to stay the hell away from those Mormon missionaries in England.

[Archimedes]

Nope. My ancestors were just poor immigrants caught up in a frontier sex cult.

Mine, too.
Wish i could go back in time and tell them to stay the hell away from those Mormon missionaries in England.

...after which you would immediately cease to exist. Time travel can be tricky, be careful out there.

[Archimedes]

I have a couple of royal ancestry lines. Also Mormon Royalty and Mayflower ancestry. It's a Richards thing.

So of course I'm going around thinkin' I'm better than the rest of y'all.

[Hagoth]

One of my great-grandfathers, after meeting missionaries in Wales, secretly left his family in the middle of the night with his favorite child and caught a steamer for America. But he picked up a couple of new wives when he made it to Utah.

[Archimedes]

This discussion reminds me of the song "Wind Up" by Jethro Tull, esp this part:


How do you dare tell me that I'm my father's son
When that was just an accident of birth
I'd rather look around me, compose a better song
'Cause that's the honest measure of my worth
In your pomp and all your glory you're a poorer man than me
As you lick the boots of death born out of fear


I think history has shown that one's lineage is a poor measure of leadership abilities, etc. Still a good idea to keep those guillotines sharp in case anyone gets uppity.

Have a good one,

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

One of my great-grandfathers, after meeting missionaries in Wales, secretly left his family in the middle of the night with his favorite child and caught a steamer for America. But he picked up a couple of new wives when he made it to Utah.

Same deal with my patrilineal side. Brighamite missionaries converted the couple, the Dad got cold feet and left the church before gathering to zion. Mom was angry about that and left with the young boys, came to the US, married a man in order to make the trek west and settled in Utah in the 1850s. It's weird to think about whether a version of me would exist back in Europe had she not done that. I could be chillin' with a flat spliff in Scotland, but no, the version of me as I am wouldn't even exist.

[hmb]

I'm from part McConkie. Does this make me Royal ?

[oliver_denom]

However, I tend to take that with a major grain of salt. When my dad researches family history, he seems to link to the most interesting possible ancestor, not the most likely. So I think there is very high likelihood of error in that family tree. That does bring up concerns with this whole amature genealogy thing the church pushes. When you have a whole bunch of average joe's out doing this with little to no training and even less cross checking, there is a huge potential for error.

Speaking of errors in one's family tree, DNA testing has thrown a major wrench into the whole ordeal. While the church's doctrine is open to the idea of adoption, there's still a lot of doctrinal emphasis on literal blood relations. As more and more people get tested, they are finding out that their biological fathers aren't who they thought they were. For generations, people would have adulterous or out of wedlock relations, and they had no solid way of determining who the biological father was. In other cases, I've especially seen this here in the south, families would just take in children and rename them as their own. The adoptions weren't recorded, and in some cases were actively hidden.

Even if you do trace a genealogy back three hundred years, then it would be patently absurd to think that there wasn't at least one case where the parents aren't who they said they were. Nine generations involves 512 people assuming there's no kissing cousins. This sort of work is a hobby, and after a certain point, can't be taken as an actual history of genetic transfer. I'd be willing to bet that 2/3 rds of the population couldn't even go back three generations before hitting something like this.

This kind of story telling ignores a basic fundamental truth. All living human beings are descended from basically the same small group of people. People within each ethnicity are more closely related, but what's a few thousand years in the scheme of things? There's nothing genetically special about any given human verses another.