Royal Ancestry question

vcczar

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Oct 28, 2022, 6:27:33 PM10/28/22

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Hi everyone,

I'm well-aware of royal ancesty books by Gary Boyd Roberts and Douglas Richardson for American royal descent. However, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any books for Germans (non-American) of royal descent, say leading back to Charlemagne. I'm not sure how "gateway ancestors" would work in this regard. Anyway, just a shot in the dark question.

FELIX E-E PFEIFLE

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Oct 30, 2022, 3:14:58 PM10/30/22

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On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 6:27:33 PM UTC-4, vcczar wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm well-aware of royal ancesty books by Gary Boyd Roberts and Douglas Richardson for American royal descent. However, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any books for Germans (non-American) of royal descent, say leading back to Charlemagne. I'm not sure how "gateway ancestors" would work in this regard. Anyway, just a shot in the dark question.

Greetings, VCCzar, Very good question--I'd be curious to hear from professional genealogists on this. I don't believe there are any specific books in Continental Europe for such research other than the standard books of aristocratic genealogy, such as the German Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, etc. I suppose in America we have the benefit of that "separation" from Great Britain and Europe in order to isolate just certain ancestors, those upon their immigration here. Due to primogeniture in the English and Scottish nobility, as you probably know, there is a far greater chance of "trickle-down" royal descent for Americans than there is even for Germans, etc., perhaps.

joseph cook

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Oct 30, 2022, 3:40:29 PM10/30/22

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On Sunday, October 30, 2022 at 3:14:58 PM UTC-4, FELIX E-E PFEIFLE wrote:
> On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 6:27:33 PM UTC-4, vcczar wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'm well-aware of royal ancesty books by Gary Boyd Roberts and Douglas Richardson for American royal descent. However, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any books for Germans (non-American) of royal descent, say leading back to Charlemagne. I'm not sure how "gateway ancestors" would work in this regard. Anyway, just a shot in the dark question.

America is a weird situation that a limited number of 17th century founders (about 20,000 in New England) became the ancestors tens of millions of Americans today; and a relatively high proportion of these immigrants were of gentry stock with money that allowed them to invest their time in such adventures. That America did become a melting pot in that there was extreme cross-class marriage and interactions compared to Europe. So you can come up with a list of a few hundred folks with known royal ancestry that have millions of living descendants who care.

"Germany", or central Europe in general, on the other hand, did not have the same level of class mobility where you would expect a random farmer to ever be three generations removed from nobility (at least not recorded in records). You also don't have anywhere near the ready access to surviving records as England for the pre-1500 period. Trying to trace barely significant individuals in 14th or 15th century central europe is beyond daunting. Before 1600 in Wittgenstein, for example, folks would be in militialists just as "Abraham" or "Georg" with no other descriptor...maybe an occupation; and maybe a house (physical house structure) name if you are lucky. In England, it was much earlier...the process to have "family" name identifiers in records was entrenched by 1350, and true surnames were ubiquitous by 1400 in England.

---Joe Cook

joseph cook

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Oct 30, 2022, 3:44:50 PM10/30/22

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It's also probably worth noting that England has been a country with continuous legal framework basically since 1066; with legal records existing since that time in centralized and well maintained repositories.

Compare to this map of "Germany" 1600

https://external-preview.redd.it/XmNUsWtfieHEZlgqTroBb9MGICqazBBD1HVWnwpNE6g.jpg?auto=webp&s=904e2bfaf8f3a16a9266eec53012c5527571e0a1

a mish-mash of local authorities. Then the 30 years war came through to mash it up even more.
--Joe Cook

vcczar

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Oct 30, 2022, 4:20:24 PM10/30/22

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I figured as much, but I was just hoping there was some known documented attempt to capture royal ancestry among "common" German families.

Enno Borgsteede

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Oct 31, 2022, 8:18:49 AM10/31/22

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Op 30-10-2022 om 21:20 schreef vcczar:

> I figured as much, but I was just hoping there was some known documented attempt to capture royal ancestry among "common" German families.

If it exists, the best place to look for it is probably here:

https://www.compgen.de/