[PORTUGAL-L] (Long) Negro (?) Ancestry of Queen Charlotte thru the Sousas

[Francisco Antonio Doria]

>The de Sousas are widely accepted among genealogists as a
> black branch of the Portuguese royal family, he said.

Where did this guy find that the Sousas do Prado are `the Black branch of the Portuguese royals'?

>
> The key, he discovered, was that Charlotte was descended
> from the black line in a number of ways: When Alfonso III
> of Portugal conquered Faro, a small Portuguese town
> controlled by the Moors in the 13th century, he took the
> African daughter of Faro's governor - Ouruana, who is
> later baptised Madalena Gil - as his ''droit de
> seigneur,'' or rite of conquest.

Her name was in fact a nickname, Mourana = the little Moor girl.

>One of their sons,
> Martin Alfonso, married into the de Sousa family, who
> also had black ancestry, Valdes said.

Where from, this extra Black ancestry of the old Sousa line? Certainly Gomes Echiguez had an African name, or Echigue Gozoys, or Egas Gomes de Sousa, as well as their wives. All clear-cut African names, sure, no doubt.

>Back then, it was
> proper to take the name of the most powerful family.

This gives a hint of this Valdez guy's scholarship: they got the name Sousa because they *inherited* parts of the lands of the old Sousa family.

Enough.

>
>

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Francisco Antonio Doria
Prix Caumont-La Force 1995
(Conféderation Internationale de Généalogie et d'Héraldique.)
Full member, Brazilian College of Genealogists (CBG)
fad...@rio.com.br
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