On Tuesday, September 5, 2017 at 5:38:56 PM UTC-7, Peter Stewart wrote: > These are the effects I had in mind, but still I am surprised at the > frequency of descents from earlier kings that apparently bypass Edward III. > > I wonder how many contemporaries of his are traced in these cases - if > only a small proportion of ancestors living in his time are known, then > the exercise is not very illuminating and we are left with hunches as to > likelihood. Entirely incidental, but one of my Edward I-only immigrants has (I think I am counting this right) 9 different lines from Edward I. About 2/3 of my 15 immigrant-Edward I lines involve just two conduits, through Margaret de Audley (m. Ralph, Earl Stafford), or Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk (m. Robert Goushill). This is probably a distorted picture, though, since two of the three immigrants (with relatively broad pedigrees) happen to converge very quickly on the same small group of intermarrying families. The third is more a stick back to the Goushill/Wingfield marriage, and though there are more lines known before that for both husband and wife, by that point the opportunities were pretty limited. The one without royals is pretty broad from the early 1500s to the 1300s, just unlucky (if that is the word for it). When I last looked a couple of decades ago, those New England colonial immigrants whose most-recent royal was Edward I were disproportionate in number to either Edward III or Henry III, the next two highest. taf

On 06-Sep-17 12:05 PM, taf wrote: > On Tuesday, September 5, 2017 at 5:38:56 PM UTC-7, Peter Stewart wrote: >> These are the effects I had in mind, but still I am surprised at the >> frequency of descents from earlier kings that apparently bypass Edward III. >> >> I wonder how many contemporaries of his are traced in these cases - if >> only a small proportion of ancestors living in his time are known, then >> the exercise is not very illuminating and we are left with hunches as to >> likelihood. > Entirely incidental, but one of my Edward I-only immigrants has (I think I am counting this right) 9 different lines from Edward I. About 2/3 of my 15 immigrant-Edward I lines involve just two conduits, through Margaret de Audley (m. Ralph, Earl Stafford), or Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk (m. Robert Goushill). This is probably a distorted picture, though, since two of the three immigrants (with relatively broad pedigrees) happen to converge very quickly on the same small group of intermarrying families. The third is more a stick back to the Goushill/Wingfield marriage, and though there are more lines known before that for both husband and wife, by that point the opportunities were pretty limited. The one without royals is pretty broad from the early 1500s to the 1300s, just unlucky (if that is the word for it). I would say lucky - the offspring of Edward III are not exactly ancestors to be proud of, unless your criteria are focused on birth rank as taking priority over moral character or political achievement. Edward III himself, who initiated the French pretendership that led to the 100 Years' war, was not much better than his brood of failures. Malevolent Plantagenet nincompoops are not my idea of desirable ancestors. Peter Stewart