On Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 1:40:03 PM UTC-7, Mark Spitler
m_sp...@comcast.net wrote:
> After reading how they identified the skeleton of Richard III from DNA from descendants of his nieces , I was wondering if anyone has ever documented how many living descendants there are from Edward IV's daughters , and possibly illegitimate offspring ?
The first volume of the Plantagenet Roll series by Ruvigny - the Tudor volume, published in 1903 - is, as far as I know, to date the most comprehensive attempt to trace all of the legitimate living descendants of Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII. Ruvigny named 11,723 of her living (in 1903) legitimate descendants.
Edward IV's daughters Mary and Bridget of York died unmarried. His daughters Cecily and Anne both married, but died without surviving issue. The issue of his daughter Katherine, Countess of Devon, was extinct in 1556.
The mtDNA line of Queen Elizabeth of York (and so of Queen Elizabeth Woodville) was extinct in 1642 at the death of the 6th Earl of Derby. I don't know for certain if there are any living mtDNA descendants of the sisters of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, but I have a few of their mtDNA descendants in my database as late as the 19th century, so the likelihood is good that there are some living today. You can use the Genealogics database founded by Leo van de Pas to get a better answer:
https://www.genealogics.org/descendtext.php?personID=I00015403&tree=LEO&generations=
Edward IV had at least one illegitimate daughter, Margaret, Lady Lumley, who has thousands of living descendants today, some overlapping with the descendants of Queen Elizabeth of York, but many others who do not.
Hope this helps.
Cheers, -----Brad