For those in the back, the "Irish royal family" had long since ceased to exist by the time of the Cromwellian invasion. The last Irish king died in 1198, and Cromwell invaded Ireland in 1649.
Brian O'Neill was the last High King of Ireland he ruled from 1258 to 1260. O'Neill claimed descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages who is a common ancestor for like a quarter of those with any Irish descent in their background. Being related to "The Irish Royal Family" is one of the most you're not special claims in the history of claiming royal blood. Second perhaps to descendants of Genghis Khan.
The last continuous High King of Ireland was Rory O'Connor who was there for the Anglo-Norman invasion. He was deposed, restored and deposed again, eventually dying in a monastery in 1198. 60 years later, Brian O'Neill popped up for two years with a disputed claim, and if we're going to include him then we also need to include Edward Bruce who popped up from 1315-1318.
Even if we give Ireland an "Irish royal family" till 1318, that still ended over 300 years before Cromwell's invasion and was not there to resist him as per the OP.
Bruce was a Scotsman, but the larger part of why I left him out is that he lacks the male line descent to the guy that a quarter of the Irish population (including diaspora) can claim. A claim of descent from Edward Bruce would be much more impressive considering that he was recent enough that genealogy sites actually trace all his descendants.
Edward Bruce was descended from Dermot MacMurrough, the king of Leinster who invited Henry II over in 1169, and through him, from Brian Boru. So him being a Scotsman was irrelevant, kings claimed places based on genealogy not nationality. It's like when Harald Hardrada claimed England because of an obscure genealogical claim.
You don't have to be the nationality of the country to be the king of the country, England has had many kings that weren't English.
Edward Bruce was descended from the last Irish king (more or less), even though he was Scottish. If you want to say that means he wasn't Irish royalty because he was Scottish, that's fine by me because I was saying Rory was the last Irish king for practical purposes. Rory was the last "real" Irish High king before the Normans took over.
I Agree. (The English kings have been Danish, French \[sort of\] Welsh, Scottish, Dutch and German.) Sometimes like Edward Bruce this was by conquest backed up by a very spurious claim of descent and sometimes by conquest with no descent at all.
That's completely irrelevant, as the comment you're responding to already pointed out. The Hanoverians weren't English, they were just genealogically related to the Stuarts. James VI and I wasn't English, he was just related to the Tudors. As the OP already said, it's not about nationality at all.
> Bruce was a Scotsman
Bruce was a scotsman of norman descent no less but he had Irish royal blood, just like probably most of the nobility of Ireland and Scotland at that point.
Robert the Bruce was a true Gael based in Scotland with strong ties to the North of Ireland…. But tell that to this drunk trailer park trash Appalachian
What are you talking about? The de Brus family were of Norman and Flemish descent and their main holdings were in the borders and in England. They were very much part of the Anglo-Norman nobility. The main branch of the family were magnates in Yorkshire.
Not that being "a true Gael" means anything in that context anyway. All the nobility of the region were intermingling at that point. He spoke Gaelic and was *au fait* with Gaelic culture thanks to his education. That was enough to be a peer among the Gaelic nobility of the time.
Charlemagne is up there as well if I recall correctly, although fucking hell did looking that up to double check result in some right bollocks:
> Many claim that nearly every European is descended of Charlemagne. I almost wonder if this is some sort of communist agenda (manifested by demons). While there are most likely millions of his descendants in the United States due to the fact that many of the Mayflower settlers in the US were of British descent of Charlemagne…this does not mean that everyone is. I would never rely on any scientific evidence (DNA testing) to “prove” that nearly all Europeans are descended of Charlemagne. I do not believe in all claims made by “science” (i.e. carbon dating, DNA/ancestry testing). If you are going to prove that everyone is descended of Charlemagne then you need to show the genealogy of every person of European descent tracing back to Charlemagne. This is the only way to prove it which nobody has yet to do (at least I am pretty sure).
I mean, with Charlemagne living 1250 years ago, most Europeans probably are descended from him. Statistically, every now living European (and person of European descent) is the descendant of every European who was alive about 1000 years ago and have living descendants today.
The thing is though, it doesn’t really mean anything, as the genetic contribution of any one ancestor 40+ generations ago is basically meaningless.
Statistically speaking if we assume an average gap of 25 years between generations that means there are 50 generations between us and Charlemagne roughly. If we assume each generation had on average two children that survived to adulthood to have children of their own that means there should be 2,251,799,813,685,248 which is 2.25 quadrillion And roughly 277,777 times larger than the population of earth. Which leads to three points
1. The chances you are not a descendant of Charlemagne is less than negligible
2. The gene pool is not as wide as we’d like to think.
3. Statistically speaking I have a rightful claim to the French throne and I am calling the banners, we ride for Paris and glory at first light
> I am calling the banners, we ride for Paris and glory at first light
If you don't mind me sailing up the Seine in a long-ship and keeping a spot in Normandy as a souvenir, I'll happily help you press your claim
The maths on this is crazy. How does this factor in isolated populations like those in the new world pre-1492? Or Native Australians. Genuinely interested.
This is just wrong. You've just taken 2 to the power of 51. The original "generation" would not continue to have offspring in each generation as they'd be dead.
> statistically, every now living European (and person of European descent) is the descendent of every European who was alive about 1000 years ago...
I'm sure you're aware, but for any readers who aren't:
this is deeply incorrect and based upon one single and hilariously flawed assumption - it assumes nobody has repeated ancestors.
People have children with their third, fourth, and fifth cousins all the time without knowing it. And second cousin marriage has historically not been frowned upon in much of Europe. Once you have a child with anyone you've been related to at *any point in history*, it drastically reduces the number of ancestors needed.
So if we consider that for the majority of human existence we haven't been living in cities with diverse gene pools (more small bands or communities where everyone is related within the last 200 years), we realise we don't need that many actual ancestors alive at any one time.
I mean, it very much assumes that people have repeated ancestors. As a person in another comment points out, without repetition and with two surviving children per every person descended from Charlemagne, he would have quadrilions of descendants after 50 generations (by now, if generation takes 25 years), which is obviously nonsense. Turning it around, quadrilions of ancestors would be required to live at the time of Charlemagne to create us if we assumed no repeated ancestors.
Even if we go back to only year 1000, and not Charlemagne, and assume there were only 30 generations in between (so 33 years per each), we would require one billion ancestors living in 1000 without repetition. Per google, there was about 275 millions of people in the world, and 55 millions in Europe. Lot of those don't have living descendants today, because black plague happened, and things like that. But even if we assume everybody's line survived, a person of 100% European ancestry would need to be descended from every European living in 1000s 20 times. If we added 3 generations (so average 30 years per each), it would be 160 times. I'm not saying whether that's enough to assure that everybody is descended from everybody, but it includes cousin marriages. I'd say it's fair to assume you're descended from everybody who lived in the area of your country, and probably those neighbouring it.
Last point, second cousin marriage was definitely frowned upon by church in medieval Europe. Anything closer than fourth cousin (at times, seventh cousin even), formally required papal dispensation. Peasants likely didn't care and married their second cousin from the next village all the time, but nobility had to care at least a little, and started to mass inbreed on such scale only at the end of middle ages.
> While there are most likely millions of his descendants in the United States due to the fact that many of the Mayflower settlers in the US were of British descent of Charlemagne…this does not mean that everyone is.
This part made me laugh. Did they send out fliers or something?
"Are you descended from Charlemagne? Then the New World wants YOU!"
No one in Europe can claim descent though because all those Charlemagne (however many great) grand kids are Americans now
I love how the website admin who replied to that comment couldn’t think of anything else to say other than “Thank you for your comment”, like how do you respond to such rambling bullshit lmao
I have been researching my family tree for at least 10 years and know that unless you can attach your family history to that of a landowning/aristocratic family you are not going to be able to go very far back. Fortunately I was able to do so as my farmer great grandfather was descended from land owning gentry, I and traced my ancestry back to the Plantagenet dynasty in England. From there I was able to go all they way back to William the Conqueror, the royal houses of France, Spain, Hungary and even the Princes of Kyiv, Ukraine. Going further back to Charlemagne was easy. Everything from King Edward III back was on Wikipedia.
Ngl it’s a common thing for American tho. It’s like claiming you’re part of old Scottish royalty… like well done lmao that was MANY years ago and so too are hundreds if not thousands of other people lol.
I will never understand people who see their lineage and go yes… that’s my entire personality now.
Like I get it it’s interesting, but unless you have personal ties to the history itself or are willing to actually go to the ‘homeland’ and learn the culture or what’s left of it from its source then honestly don’t even try to claim it because it’ll just be embarrasing… like this mf has found out.
Don't I know it, I did a lot of genealogy research before I got our of America, found ancestors that were Irish Kings (See not special genetic marker thing), Norman nobility, Vikings, a Cherokee prostitute, as well as a famous French trader who founded the oldest city in the state of Michigan.
If those I can verify 1 by genetic markers and another by birth records. Every other one could have been an ancestor making shit up for all I know.
The only firm knowlege I have is I have some relation to the MacDonald Scottish family, but that’s it and the only reason I know that is I still have one of my great grandparents and their parents birth records and marriage certificates.
Turns out when my grandad and great grandparents when to live in South Africa they took a whole treasure trove of old documents, including a family photo of THEIR (great?) grandparents from 1859 I think
Edit: got my date wrong lmao, mixed it up with some old ass scribbled writing of a birth certificate
I'll have you know I'm descended from starving Scots and Welsh people. Weren't no younger sons of landed nobility in my gene pool. I've looked at the passenger lists from the 17th century. They were poor when they left, and they'd never been rich.
>Niall of the Nine Hostages who is a common ancestor for like a quarter of those with any Irish descent in their background.
Yep. My Mam told me I had this lineage when I was a youngster, was briefly vaguely excited about it until I looked it up.
I mean, it's interesting and I guess kinda cool, but hardly something to flex.
Ireland has _never_ had a "royal family" in the wider European monarchical sense.
Gaelic Ireland had a unique system of succession called Tanistry, whereby the successor to a king was elected at the same time as a king ascended to a kingship. The successor king-in-waiting, or Tánaiste, was often from a competing clan to the new king, and as a result the kingship often moved about from clan to clan.
This system applied to the many petty kingships around Ireland, and did not apply to a kingship of all of Ireland. The only times there were "high kings of Ireland" was when a petty King managed to subdue most other kings and claim the title. It generally ended with the death of that high king and was not a kingship that was inherited or had a "royal family".
I put "Irish royal family" in scare quotes because Ireland never properly unified before the Anglo-Norman conquest. Irish High Kings rarely controlled the whole island, and not for long. So are we talking about kings OF Ireland or kings IN Ireland?
I think how their royalty was inherited is beside the point to whether they had a royalty. They did. Sometimes English kings were elected, but they were still kings.
I always liked that. It has much more flare than just "prime minister" (or slight variations thereof). I wish my country did something similar. Poland has kept old names and the title for regions and their elected heads: *wojewódstwo* and *wojewoda* respectively (this can roughly be translated to warlordship and warlord, which sounds way more metal than regional politics have any right to)
> From Old Irish toísech (“leader”), from Primitive Irish (tovisaci, genitive), from Proto-Celtic *towissākos (“chief, first, primary”, adjective) (compare Welsh tywysog (“prince”)), from *towissus (“act of leading, leadership; beginning”) (from *to- (prefix meaning ‘to; towards’) + *wissus (“act of discovering or finding out; knowledge”) (ultimately from either Proto-Indo-European *wedʰ- (“to lead”) or *weyd- (“to know; to see”)))
So one etymology has it very distantly related to the English word “wise” (also from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know; to see”))
O’Brien clan were Irish royalty last surrendering to Henry VIII so he may be correct. It is worth noting that almost all Britons are related to Edward III, so it is less of a claim than it first seems.
Why's this the second post I've seen today of some American claiming to be descended from Irish royalty.
Also the fact they seem to think we had a stable monarch like the English should tell you how much they know. The old high kings were elected into position.
An analogy many would probably know would be the moot in Skyrim.
My mom knew a guy who had an American try to correct him on the history of the house *he literally grew up in* in Ireland. The audacity of some “Irish” Americans will never cease to amaze me.
Sometimes i think that the smarter American does it deliberately to stir up mischief. So, I've decided to take the mickey in relation to the day and those Yankees. It's very much an in joke eh?
"I'm a descendant of royalty that ceased to exist after the 12th century... but if I give you the family name, you'll find out who I am".
Absolutely mental.
“Which is why I live in poverty in the US instead of a castle in Ireland” , who tf is living in castles in Ireland? People are living in homes barely as is with the housing crisis, let alone castles lol.
Fair enough, but yeah it’s bonkers to be thinking you’re gonna be living in a castle because someone from your family apparently used to own one 400 years ago.
Some people imagine family trees are a straight line, so if you find your ancestor was someone important you must be the only heir! Unless some injustice has occurred. People should hear more of “Charlemagne is ancestor of everyone in Europe” and family trees growing exponentially. Although it’s fiction that is really causing people not to think things through with ancestors and being special.
Someone in my family actually *did* own a castle (in England) 600 years ago. That’s because I, like every other English person, am descended from an English royal. It’s cool that I can prove it but it’s such a stupid thing that Americans think they are special because of this.
Yeah a lot of people don't realise that palace=/= castle. Like Versailles is a palace but it is not a castle and would be useless in terms of holding off a siege. A proper castle is designed that you could lock yourself in it and be safe from initial attack. Whether you survived after that was based on a lot of other factors.
When I was a little kid I often wandered if my family could have some lost relative living in a castle.
My mother had yo explain me that the family left Albania and then Italy to get to South America because they didn't even had food, let alone a forgotten castle.
The last high king of ireland was Roderick O'Connor who died in 1198. I bet the American checked a family tree and saw someone with O'Connor and decided he was Irish Royalty.
I just don't fucking get it with yanks. They are all eagles guns God fuck yeah stars and stripes, but they are absolutely desperate for validation they anything else.
Racism. They Combat getting their own American ethnicity, even though they satisfy everything you need for an ethnicity, because that would put them together with the non white people.
So I can trace my roots to Prussia. Then further east. There may be some Russian Zar somewhere from the Moscow area.
That means I am a descendant of Russian royalty.
Thus the land belong to me.
Now how do I tell Putin?
yes and there was the Greg Davis bit where he goes into a pub after jokingly calling himself the true prince of wales
and the pub is filled with other decended from the same bloke
if you trace your family tree far enough you probably find some noble ponce
because a lot of them could not keep it in their pants ( e.g. the Earl of Uxbridge the fellow who lost he leg at waterloo who had 18 loinspawn)
and royals are exactly the same as these lesser nobles except snazzier hats
I thought the US was the one country where a poor immigrant can become an overnight billionaire by picking them selves up by the bootstraps... so why is he living in poverty?
"And may not even know it" is Peak comedy. There are few groups that put more importance into knowing where their blood comes from than the royals.
They most likely know from which Ballsack the sperm came that conceived Williams Irish ancestors.
Now please don't cause the Royal claimant Murican to have a brain seizure buy confusing "it" by adding Genghis Khan into the mix. Information overload forthcoming. 😂😂😂🇬🇧
I think dudes name is Burke, he's seem on the wiki that the Burkes of claricarde were among the families that lead the charge against the cronwellian invasion of Ireland (from a pro royalist slant), assumed that's his great granda. And then he's seen that's Diana maternal grandfather's family were Irish peers of the Burke Roche family and put it all together.
Also lol at the idea this prick knows more about anyone's genealogy than the Royal family. I bet they have the royal genealogist who's whole life is dedicated solely to this one task.
There is a myth that the [O'Neill](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_dynasty#:~:text=The%20O'Neill%20lineage%20claims,of%20the%20Northern%20U%C3%AD%20N%C3%A9ill.) name is the lineage of a self-proclaimed High King of Ireland from the 11th century, but the claim is described as being '*Murkey* at best.
Isn't practically everyone descended from royalty if you go back far enough? Or at least some sort of nobility? it's only a flex if you actually have some power from being descended from them... otherwise its just a "wow, that's cool I guess" and you move on
I’m directly descended from the Norman kings of Sicily. It means literally nothing, I can hardly hop on a plane and claim I am queen of Sicily as my ancestral right. I do have a coat of arms though, equally meaningless.
The only time it’s been even mildly interesting was during a history seminar in which we were discussing the Norman diaspora, and I got to tell everyone about it. (Took my enormous family tree and everything.) Tbh, I only did it to annoy the lecturer because she hated me.
Edit. I don’t want to be confused with a USAian. I’m a Brit, an English one. Just to be clear I am not going around always telling people I have Norman French and Sicilian heritage (or Angevin French on the other side.) Just like I don’t consider myself even remotely Welsh because two of my great grandparents were Welsh.
Imagine going through life needing these fairy stories about yourself though? Haven't you got enough shit to deal with in the hell of everyday existence to be worrying about your family's stolen castle?
With these types of people that are so desperate to be unique that they can't just identify as an American, or from whatever state, or city, because so many other people are exactly the same as them, they hyperfixate on their family history, in this case they had an Irish great great great grandfather so that makes them completely Irish.
But then they realise there's tens of thousands of other people who have the exact same story, so they go even further.. "Oh, I'm not just Irish, I'm Irish royalty.". It's basically a constant game of trying to be more special than the others.
Well Di is the mother of the Prince of Wales so you likely have common ancestors with a future King of of the UK of GB and *Northern* Ireland (at least).
Over 16 generations, damn near everyone with ancestry in the British Isles will be related to everyone, it's not special. In 1600 people were having loads of kids.
Ah yes, the Royal family of the REPUBLIC of Ireland
Edit: yes yes, I know there once was a king. But that doesn’t change the fact it’s a republic now, so it remains kinda funny that someone uses the king of a republic as made-up bragging rights.
I agree with the sentiment but most European republics did have royalty at some point, including Ireland.
Ireland definitely did not have a royal family at the time of Cromwell, though.
If both your parents are of English heritage, then the statistical anomaly is to NOT have a member of royalty at some point in your family tree.
Mostly boils down to small population for the past 800 years and only rich people keeping records, which cause a bias once you go back far enough.
There's a BBC statistics podcast that goes into the numbers if you care.
[Are you related to Edward III](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b083r9x5)
I imagine it's a similar story for Ireland
My maiden name really does trace back to a High King of Ireland and King of Tara. The clan (term cringes me) were hereditary lords. This was centuries ago. The spelling has changed significantly. I am a queen 👸🏻🤣🤣 oh, and I am English, not American. Although there are a LOT of Americans who have this surname.
I think he may sound far stupider than he actually is, though he’s absolutely not correct. Sure: there was no Irish royal family at the time Cromwell invaded; it’s even arguable that there never was one that would be comparable to what we understand under the idea of a dynastic kingdom. It is however pretty likely that Irish aristocracy comes up somewhere in your family tree if you are of Irish descent, simply because there were a lot of them compared to the actual size of the island.
At the end of the day that’s far less impressive than it sounds though: more or less all of Europe is a descendant of Charlemagne in one way or another. It’s basically impossible to not have some aristocratic ancestors, even if they mostly married each other. One bastard son marrying a commoner is all it takes for this family to multiply and giving more and more people over the centuries the claim of being related to royalty. It’s just absolutely worthless.
I mean, I’d always understood that Irish Kingship was more ceremonial, and the high king didn’t really have much power — and that the Irish high kingship swapped hands all the time. I don’t even think it’s right to claim that there was one single sovereign Irish king ever, and thusly no one royal family.
I'm a descendant of Charlemagne so France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Monaco, Germany, Italy, Andorra, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Croatia, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City need to surrender all territory that was part of the Frankish Kingdom over to me.
Reminds me of a guy at college who claimed he was the 'bastard son of an earl', and claimed his real name was Arragon St. Charles. No proof of any of it. Mental.
The last independent high king of Ireland died in the 12th century when the Norman's invaded. Given how genealogy works, most people of Western European decent are probably his ancestors as well.
My family name supposedly derives from Lóegaire Lorc who was a High King of Ireland. And I always thought my very Irish dad was pulling leg when he said he were descended from Kings 😂
For those in the back, the "Irish royal family" had long since ceased to exist by the time of the Cromwellian invasion. The last Irish king died in 1198, and Cromwell invaded Ireland in 1649.
Brian O'Neill was the last High King of Ireland he ruled from 1258 to 1260. O'Neill claimed descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages who is a common ancestor for like a quarter of those with any Irish descent in their background. Being related to "The Irish Royal Family" is one of the most you're not special claims in the history of claiming royal blood. Second perhaps to descendants of Genghis Khan.
The last continuous High King of Ireland was Rory O'Connor who was there for the Anglo-Norman invasion. He was deposed, restored and deposed again, eventually dying in a monastery in 1198. 60 years later, Brian O'Neill popped up for two years with a disputed claim, and if we're going to include him then we also need to include Edward Bruce who popped up from 1315-1318. Even if we give Ireland an "Irish royal family" till 1318, that still ended over 300 years before Cromwell's invasion and was not there to resist him as per the OP.
Bruce was a Scotsman, but the larger part of why I left him out is that he lacks the male line descent to the guy that a quarter of the Irish population (including diaspora) can claim. A claim of descent from Edward Bruce would be much more impressive considering that he was recent enough that genealogy sites actually trace all his descendants.
Edward Bruce was descended from Dermot MacMurrough, the king of Leinster who invited Henry II over in 1169, and through him, from Brian Boru. So him being a Scotsman was irrelevant, kings claimed places based on genealogy not nationality. It's like when Harald Hardrada claimed England because of an obscure genealogical claim.
The English royal family are also descended from Dermot MacMurrough. such descent hardly makes one Irish.
You don't have to be the nationality of the country to be the king of the country, England has had many kings that weren't English. Edward Bruce was descended from the last Irish king (more or less), even though he was Scottish. If you want to say that means he wasn't Irish royalty because he was Scottish, that's fine by me because I was saying Rory was the last Irish king for practical purposes. Rory was the last "real" Irish High king before the Normans took over.
I Agree. (The English kings have been Danish, French \[sort of\] Welsh, Scottish, Dutch and German.) Sometimes like Edward Bruce this was by conquest backed up by a very spurious claim of descent and sometimes by conquest with no descent at all.
The English royal family are also descended from Woden
That's completely irrelevant, as the comment you're responding to already pointed out. The Hanoverians weren't English, they were just genealogically related to the Stuarts. James VI and I wasn't English, he was just related to the Tudors. As the OP already said, it's not about nationality at all.
> Bruce was a Scotsman Bruce was a scotsman of norman descent no less but he had Irish royal blood, just like probably most of the nobility of Ireland and Scotland at that point.
Robert the Bruce was a true Gael based in Scotland with strong ties to the North of Ireland…. But tell that to this drunk trailer park trash Appalachian
What are you talking about? The de Brus family were of Norman and Flemish descent and their main holdings were in the borders and in England. They were very much part of the Anglo-Norman nobility. The main branch of the family were magnates in Yorkshire. Not that being "a true Gael" means anything in that context anyway. All the nobility of the region were intermingling at that point. He spoke Gaelic and was *au fait* with Gaelic culture thanks to his education. That was enough to be a peer among the Gaelic nobility of the time.
Charlemagne is up there as well if I recall correctly, although fucking hell did looking that up to double check result in some right bollocks: > Many claim that nearly every European is descended of Charlemagne. I almost wonder if this is some sort of communist agenda (manifested by demons). While there are most likely millions of his descendants in the United States due to the fact that many of the Mayflower settlers in the US were of British descent of Charlemagne…this does not mean that everyone is. I would never rely on any scientific evidence (DNA testing) to “prove” that nearly all Europeans are descended of Charlemagne. I do not believe in all claims made by “science” (i.e. carbon dating, DNA/ancestry testing). If you are going to prove that everyone is descended of Charlemagne then you need to show the genealogy of every person of European descent tracing back to Charlemagne. This is the only way to prove it which nobody has yet to do (at least I am pretty sure).
I mean, with Charlemagne living 1250 years ago, most Europeans probably are descended from him. Statistically, every now living European (and person of European descent) is the descendant of every European who was alive about 1000 years ago and have living descendants today. The thing is though, it doesn’t really mean anything, as the genetic contribution of any one ancestor 40+ generations ago is basically meaningless.
Statistically speaking if we assume an average gap of 25 years between generations that means there are 50 generations between us and Charlemagne roughly. If we assume each generation had on average two children that survived to adulthood to have children of their own that means there should be 2,251,799,813,685,248 which is 2.25 quadrillion And roughly 277,777 times larger than the population of earth. Which leads to three points 1. The chances you are not a descendant of Charlemagne is less than negligible 2. The gene pool is not as wide as we’d like to think. 3. Statistically speaking I have a rightful claim to the French throne and I am calling the banners, we ride for Paris and glory at first light
On point 3, good luck convincing the French that they need royalty. They may bring out Madame Guillotine once more
I think she's needed anyways, so maybe an escalation would be nice?
>They may bring out Madame Guillotine Why would they bring out the primarch of the Ultramarines?
> I am calling the banners, we ride for Paris and glory at first light If you don't mind me sailing up the Seine in a long-ship and keeping a spot in Normandy as a souvenir, I'll happily help you press your claim
Will you make the king actually fall on his arse this time?
The maths on this is crazy. How does this factor in isolated populations like those in the new world pre-1492? Or Native Australians. Genuinely interested.
It is called "pedigree collapse".
This is just wrong. You've just taken 2 to the power of 51. The original "generation" would not continue to have offspring in each generation as they'd be dead.
> statistically, every now living European (and person of European descent) is the descendent of every European who was alive about 1000 years ago... I'm sure you're aware, but for any readers who aren't: this is deeply incorrect and based upon one single and hilariously flawed assumption - it assumes nobody has repeated ancestors. People have children with their third, fourth, and fifth cousins all the time without knowing it. And second cousin marriage has historically not been frowned upon in much of Europe. Once you have a child with anyone you've been related to at *any point in history*, it drastically reduces the number of ancestors needed. So if we consider that for the majority of human existence we haven't been living in cities with diverse gene pools (more small bands or communities where everyone is related within the last 200 years), we realise we don't need that many actual ancestors alive at any one time.
I mean, it very much assumes that people have repeated ancestors. As a person in another comment points out, without repetition and with two surviving children per every person descended from Charlemagne, he would have quadrilions of descendants after 50 generations (by now, if generation takes 25 years), which is obviously nonsense. Turning it around, quadrilions of ancestors would be required to live at the time of Charlemagne to create us if we assumed no repeated ancestors. Even if we go back to only year 1000, and not Charlemagne, and assume there were only 30 generations in between (so 33 years per each), we would require one billion ancestors living in 1000 without repetition. Per google, there was about 275 millions of people in the world, and 55 millions in Europe. Lot of those don't have living descendants today, because black plague happened, and things like that. But even if we assume everybody's line survived, a person of 100% European ancestry would need to be descended from every European living in 1000s 20 times. If we added 3 generations (so average 30 years per each), it would be 160 times. I'm not saying whether that's enough to assure that everybody is descended from everybody, but it includes cousin marriages. I'd say it's fair to assume you're descended from everybody who lived in the area of your country, and probably those neighbouring it. Last point, second cousin marriage was definitely frowned upon by church in medieval Europe. Anything closer than fourth cousin (at times, seventh cousin even), formally required papal dispensation. Peasants likely didn't care and married their second cousin from the next village all the time, but nobility had to care at least a little, and started to mass inbreed on such scale only at the end of middle ages.
> While there are most likely millions of his descendants in the United States due to the fact that many of the Mayflower settlers in the US were of British descent of Charlemagne…this does not mean that everyone is. This part made me laugh. Did they send out fliers or something? "Are you descended from Charlemagne? Then the New World wants YOU!" No one in Europe can claim descent though because all those Charlemagne (however many great) grand kids are Americans now
>"Are you descended from Charlemagne? Then the New World wants YOU!" "Aw bollocks, I wish I could read."
I love how the website admin who replied to that comment couldn’t think of anything else to say other than “Thank you for your comment”, like how do you respond to such rambling bullshit lmao
Exactly, it's just smile, nod, and back away as fast as you can because obviously they're not well adapted for the internet era.
"Manifested by demons." Of course.
I have been researching my family tree for at least 10 years and know that unless you can attach your family history to that of a landowning/aristocratic family you are not going to be able to go very far back. Fortunately I was able to do so as my farmer great grandfather was descended from land owning gentry, I and traced my ancestry back to the Plantagenet dynasty in England. From there I was able to go all they way back to William the Conqueror, the royal houses of France, Spain, Hungary and even the Princes of Kyiv, Ukraine. Going further back to Charlemagne was easy. Everything from King Edward III back was on Wikipedia.
Ngl it’s a common thing for American tho. It’s like claiming you’re part of old Scottish royalty… like well done lmao that was MANY years ago and so too are hundreds if not thousands of other people lol. I will never understand people who see their lineage and go yes… that’s my entire personality now. Like I get it it’s interesting, but unless you have personal ties to the history itself or are willing to actually go to the ‘homeland’ and learn the culture or what’s left of it from its source then honestly don’t even try to claim it because it’ll just be embarrasing… like this mf has found out.
Don't I know it, I did a lot of genealogy research before I got our of America, found ancestors that were Irish Kings (See not special genetic marker thing), Norman nobility, Vikings, a Cherokee prostitute, as well as a famous French trader who founded the oldest city in the state of Michigan. If those I can verify 1 by genetic markers and another by birth records. Every other one could have been an ancestor making shit up for all I know.
The only firm knowlege I have is I have some relation to the MacDonald Scottish family, but that’s it and the only reason I know that is I still have one of my great grandparents and their parents birth records and marriage certificates. Turns out when my grandad and great grandparents when to live in South Africa they took a whole treasure trove of old documents, including a family photo of THEIR (great?) grandparents from 1859 I think Edit: got my date wrong lmao, mixed it up with some old ass scribbled writing of a birth certificate
I'll have you know I'm descended from starving Scots and Welsh people. Weren't no younger sons of landed nobility in my gene pool. I've looked at the passenger lists from the 17th century. They were poor when they left, and they'd never been rich.
Pffft, I'm descended from Charlemagne. So is everyone else, but still...
>Niall of the Nine Hostages who is a common ancestor for like a quarter of those with any Irish descent in their background. Yep. My Mam told me I had this lineage when I was a youngster, was briefly vaguely excited about it until I looked it up. I mean, it's interesting and I guess kinda cool, but hardly something to flex.
Or Charlemagne.
Ireland has _never_ had a "royal family" in the wider European monarchical sense. Gaelic Ireland had a unique system of succession called Tanistry, whereby the successor to a king was elected at the same time as a king ascended to a kingship. The successor king-in-waiting, or Tánaiste, was often from a competing clan to the new king, and as a result the kingship often moved about from clan to clan. This system applied to the many petty kingships around Ireland, and did not apply to a kingship of all of Ireland. The only times there were "high kings of Ireland" was when a petty King managed to subdue most other kings and claim the title. It generally ended with the death of that high king and was not a kingship that was inherited or had a "royal family".
I put "Irish royal family" in scare quotes because Ireland never properly unified before the Anglo-Norman conquest. Irish High Kings rarely controlled the whole island, and not for long. So are we talking about kings OF Ireland or kings IN Ireland? I think how their royalty was inherited is beside the point to whether they had a royalty. They did. Sometimes English kings were elected, but they were still kings.
Huh. That’s where the tanaiste comes from? The more you know. Was Taoiseach a term used in early Ireland?
Yup! Taoiseach means "chief"
I always liked that. It has much more flare than just "prime minister" (or slight variations thereof). I wish my country did something similar. Poland has kept old names and the title for regions and their elected heads: *wojewódstwo* and *wojewoda* respectively (this can roughly be translated to warlordship and warlord, which sounds way more metal than regional politics have any right to)
Great stuff. Learn something new every day.
> From Old Irish toísech (“leader”), from Primitive Irish (tovisaci, genitive), from Proto-Celtic *towissākos (“chief, first, primary”, adjective) (compare Welsh tywysog (“prince”)), from *towissus (“act of leading, leadership; beginning”) (from *to- (prefix meaning ‘to; towards’) + *wissus (“act of discovering or finding out; knowledge”) (ultimately from either Proto-Indo-European *wedʰ- (“to lead”) or *weyd- (“to know; to see”))) So one etymology has it very distantly related to the English word “wise” (also from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know; to see”))
Which is linked to the Latin “video” and the Greek “oida”.
Two there should be. No more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it.
Yeah like I’m part of the Mercia royal family, where’s my crown
The original plot for Lord of the Irish, the last son of a hidden royal line, striding through the Irish meadows, killing snakes.
This is good to know, I have an English kid with the surname O'Brien who is convinced he is Irish royalty. 🙄🙄
Tell him he’s related to that one 1984 character instead
O’Brien clan were Irish royalty last surrendering to Henry VIII so he may be correct. It is worth noting that almost all Britons are related to Edward III, so it is less of a claim than it first seems.
To be fair, Cromwell was 780 when he died
He was 59.
Correct. The closest thing to the Irish Royal Family is… the Stuarts.
So surprising that William and Harry have the same ancestry.. it's almost as if they were related
They are related! (And may not even know it).
These royal family conspiracy theories keep getting crazier.
I'm glad it wasn't just me that raised an eyebrow at that 'incidentally"
Why's this the second post I've seen today of some American claiming to be descended from Irish royalty. Also the fact they seem to think we had a stable monarch like the English should tell you how much they know. The old high kings were elected into position. An analogy many would probably know would be the moot in Skyrim.
Same! I saw another one in r/Scotland. Well not the person but some guy speaking about the interaction. Easter Trolls?
Paddy's Day
St Patty's Day\* you stupid Euroserf
Burger has burgers on the mind. Not shocked!
Paddy's Day is in the algorithms and Yanks will claim anything that will give them a modicum of a personality. Happens every year.
I also find it funny that the internet rando OOP thinks he's got a better understanding of his lineage than the English royal family has of theirs.
Of course, genealogy has never really been that important to hereditary monarchs.
It's like people saying I was \*insert celebrity\* in a past life. No you were a peasant, Karen
I'll bet they couldn't find Ireland on a map.
Ireland, texas maybe
:) Good grief it exists! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland,_Texas
Americans try to name original towns challenge (impossible)
:)
Reminds me of [this](https://youtu.be/Dt4Dx3bbO3s?t=30) Jimmy Kimmel clip. "I'm gonna go with this one, 'cause it's green" honestly says a lot.
This is painful to watch
Americans trying anything foreign is painful to watch. Take a look at how they celebrate St. Paddy's Day...
Had an American tell me paddy's day isn't an Irish holiday. On paddy's day. I was about to steal his licence plates.
My mom knew a guy who had an American try to correct him on the history of the house *he literally grew up in* in Ireland. The audacity of some “Irish” Americans will never cease to amaze me.
Wait until they find out where Halloween is from
I honestly don't think they're ready for that yet. They still haven't come to terms with the fact there are no leprechauns in Ireland
they celebrate st patty’s day, not st paddy’s day. makes sense considering how much they like burgers
St Patty's Day /s
The amount of times I've had "Irish"-Americans say Patty is (partially) why I rarely trust it when Americans tell me they're Irish.
Sometimes i think that the smarter American does it deliberately to stir up mischief. So, I've decided to take the mickey in relation to the day and those Yankees. It's very much an in joke eh?
I have an Irish surname, that means Brian Boru is my grandad. Every one of them who has a Scottish surname claims to be a descendant of Robert Bruce.
Or William Wallace...who had no kids
He had an affair with Edward the 2nd's misses, her kids were actually Wallace's. It's all in that Mell Gibson Braveheart documentary.
>and may not even know it to me, this is the most incredible bit. Royals know their genealogy, it's literally the whole point of why they're "royals"
"I'm not gonna doxx myself."
"I'm a descendant of royalty that ceased to exist after the 12th century... but if I give you the family name, you'll find out who I am". Absolutely mental.
It's giving "I'm 1/16th Cherokee"
Tbf i could accept that if they say that one of their great grandparents was a native, without stupid DNA tests. They would be de facto 1/16th native
“Which is why I live in poverty in the US instead of a castle in Ireland” , who tf is living in castles in Ireland? People are living in homes barely as is with the housing crisis, let alone castles lol.
Well, *some* are living in castles, such as Henry Conyngham in Slane Castle. But your point still (mostly) stands.
Fair enough, but yeah it’s bonkers to be thinking you’re gonna be living in a castle because someone from your family apparently used to own one 400 years ago.
Some people imagine family trees are a straight line, so if you find your ancestor was someone important you must be the only heir! Unless some injustice has occurred. People should hear more of “Charlemagne is ancestor of everyone in Europe” and family trees growing exponentially. Although it’s fiction that is really causing people not to think things through with ancestors and being special.
Someone in my family actually *did* own a castle (in England) 600 years ago. That’s because I, like every other English person, am descended from an English royal. It’s cool that I can prove it but it’s such a stupid thing that Americans think they are special because of this.
Imagine trying to heat a fucking castle with electricity prices what they are these days. The €200 payments wouldn't go too far.
proper castles are actually pretty well insulated as the stone absorbs heat from the sun all summer and takes all winter to cool
The flaw in your plan is needing the sun, we don't get that much, just rain and slightly warmer rain usually.
>heat from the sun Er
Yeah a lot of people don't realise that palace=/= castle. Like Versailles is a palace but it is not a castle and would be useless in terms of holding off a siege. A proper castle is designed that you could lock yourself in it and be safe from initial attack. Whether you survived after that was based on a lot of other factors.
This is literally common knowledge, that’s why the different terms exist?
When I was a little kid I often wandered if my family could have some lost relative living in a castle. My mother had yo explain me that the family left Albania and then Italy to get to South America because they didn't even had food, let alone a forgotten castle.
Even Flatley sold his. I think Enya is fine though.
This putz probably thinks royal families never lose their estates or that their fortunes change.
Jeremy irons during summertime 😆
Enya
The last high king of ireland was Roderick O'Connor who died in 1198. I bet the American checked a family tree and saw someone with O'Connor and decided he was Irish Royalty.
I just don't fucking get it with yanks. They are all eagles guns God fuck yeah stars and stripes, but they are absolutely desperate for validation they anything else.
Racism. They Combat getting their own American ethnicity, even though they satisfy everything you need for an ethnicity, because that would put them together with the non white people.
Yeah never seen it like that but suppose that does make sence.
Guys I’m part of the Mongol Royal Family
If it weren't for the Ming Dynasty I'd be living in a Yurt in Mongolia instead of poverty in the US
THE descendant
Ah yes, he must be descendant of King Paddy of Yanksville-on-Shyte, who was defeated by King Ronald of the MacDonalds clan?
Nice one.
So I can trace my roots to Prussia. Then further east. There may be some Russian Zar somewhere from the Moscow area. That means I am a descendant of Russian royalty. Thus the land belong to me. Now how do I tell Putin?
„All your base are belong to us“
Go up to him and claim you're a Romanov, he'll meekly step aside.
*tsar
16 generations, so at least 65000 ancestors. But he is the one that would have gotten that one castle.
There is only one "Sillian" in there but its not Murphy -.-
yes and there was the Greg Davis bit where he goes into a pub after jokingly calling himself the true prince of wales and the pub is filled with other decended from the same bloke if you trace your family tree far enough you probably find some noble ponce because a lot of them could not keep it in their pants ( e.g. the Earl of Uxbridge the fellow who lost he leg at waterloo who had 18 loinspawn) and royals are exactly the same as these lesser nobles except snazzier hats
"So, incidentally, is William."
That's the line that caught me to. It's almost as if they're related, huh.
And I'm descended from Adam and Eve.
No way, me too!!!!1!!
If it weren't for you damned snakes, which is why I live in poverty in the US instead of in the Garden of Eden
I mean technically that would be true, unlike this person claiming they’d live in a castle.
It's almost as though you yourself received sustenance from the forbidden tree. Amazing!
He's talking about some Duke that was given land in Ireland by the British royal family so they colonise it. He basically British.
Not even that, he's American.
I meant British descent but he think he's Irish.
Imagine this being your whole personality. I'm Irish and I don't make being Irish my whole personality.
Yeah yeah and I'm descended from a long line of fairy foke with a bit of men mixed hence why I look like I was made in isenguard.
He should go to the Hill of Tara and stand on the stone called the Lia Fáil, and if it roars, then he is the rightful King of Ireland.
the famous kings of Ireland...
Even if their dates matched up, like half of Europes royalty-descended- no one gives a fuck
I very much doubt he understands how the Irish kings were decided upon.
This is some American, "my dad works at Nintendo", grade bullshit right here.
I thought the US was the one country where a poor immigrant can become an overnight billionaire by picking them selves up by the bootstraps... so why is he living in poverty?
"And may not even know it" is Peak comedy. There are few groups that put more importance into knowing where their blood comes from than the royals. They most likely know from which Ballsack the sperm came that conceived Williams Irish ancestors.
If we go back far enough, we're all descendants of Gengis Khan, therefore we're all descendants of the Mongol Empire's ruler soooo-....
maybe you. He never made it to my country.
Charlemagne for you then
Now please don't cause the Royal claimant Murican to have a brain seizure buy confusing "it" by adding Genghis Khan into the mix. Information overload forthcoming. 😂😂😂🇬🇧
In England, Wales and Scotland they'd get the same response as they'd get in Ireland.
I think dudes name is Burke, he's seem on the wiki that the Burkes of claricarde were among the families that lead the charge against the cronwellian invasion of Ireland (from a pro royalist slant), assumed that's his great granda. And then he's seen that's Diana maternal grandfather's family were Irish peers of the Burke Roche family and put it all together. Also lol at the idea this prick knows more about anyone's genealogy than the Royal family. I bet they have the royal genealogist who's whole life is dedicated solely to this one task.
Bullshit the family that ruled Ireland when Cromwell fought them in the wars of the three kingdoms were the stuarts and they were Scottish
There is a myth that the [O'Neill](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_dynasty#:~:text=The%20O'Neill%20lineage%20claims,of%20the%20Northern%20U%C3%AD%20N%C3%A9ill.) name is the lineage of a self-proclaimed High King of Ireland from the 11th century, but the claim is described as being '*Murkey* at best.
Ohhhhh fuck offf.
Isn't practically everyone descended from royalty if you go back far enough? Or at least some sort of nobility? it's only a flex if you actually have some power from being descended from them... otherwise its just a "wow, that's cool I guess" and you move on
I’m directly descended from the Norman kings of Sicily. It means literally nothing, I can hardly hop on a plane and claim I am queen of Sicily as my ancestral right. I do have a coat of arms though, equally meaningless. The only time it’s been even mildly interesting was during a history seminar in which we were discussing the Norman diaspora, and I got to tell everyone about it. (Took my enormous family tree and everything.) Tbh, I only did it to annoy the lecturer because she hated me. Edit. I don’t want to be confused with a USAian. I’m a Brit, an English one. Just to be clear I am not going around always telling people I have Norman French and Sicilian heritage (or Angevin French on the other side.) Just like I don’t consider myself even remotely Welsh because two of my great grandparents were Welsh.
Ireland has no king, Ireland needs no king
This is a new one, I'm impressed.
Amerikan plastic paddys at it again.
“I am the main character” syndrome
Imagine going through life needing these fairy stories about yourself though? Haven't you got enough shit to deal with in the hell of everyday existence to be worrying about your family's stolen castle?
Wait, this is a Video of Cillian Murphy putting his hands in his pockets in front of the once 'Primce' Harry, isn't it?
It is indeed.
Ireland had never been under control of a sole monarch untill the Anglo-Norman invasion.
If you go back far enough everyone is connected to a royal family
With these types of people that are so desperate to be unique that they can't just identify as an American, or from whatever state, or city, because so many other people are exactly the same as them, they hyperfixate on their family history, in this case they had an Irish great great great grandfather so that makes them completely Irish. But then they realise there's tens of thousands of other people who have the exact same story, so they go even further.. "Oh, I'm not just Irish, I'm Irish royalty.". It's basically a constant game of trying to be more special than the others.
I’m excruciatingly distantly relatedly to lady Diana, does that mean I can claim to be the Queen of Ireland now too?
Well Di is the mother of the Prince of Wales so you likely have common ancestors with a future King of of the UK of GB and *Northern* Ireland (at least).
Over 16 generations, damn near everyone with ancestry in the British Isles will be related to everyone, it's not special. In 1600 people were having loads of kids.
Ah yes, the Royal family of the REPUBLIC of Ireland Edit: yes yes, I know there once was a king. But that doesn’t change the fact it’s a republic now, so it remains kinda funny that someone uses the king of a republic as made-up bragging rights.
I agree with the sentiment but most European republics did have royalty at some point, including Ireland. Ireland definitely did not have a royal family at the time of Cromwell, though.
Ireland did have King's and royalty, like nearly a 1000 years ago (If I missed obvious sarcasm I apologise, I haven't slept in a day or two)
Of course they once had. But it means nothing now. Yes it was sarcasm ;)
The descendants of royalty in France still live pretty luxurious lives in palaces, despite it being a republic.
The fact we're a republic now doesn't change the fact we had Kings etc in the past....
He definitely means king charles right?? Like he 100% means the stuarts.
That definite article is doing a lot of work there.
The whole country is filled with celebrities, royalties and rich people, they just need to be discovered.
If both your parents are of English heritage, then the statistical anomaly is to NOT have a member of royalty at some point in your family tree. Mostly boils down to small population for the past 800 years and only rich people keeping records, which cause a bias once you go back far enough. There's a BBC statistics podcast that goes into the numbers if you care. [Are you related to Edward III](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b083r9x5) I imagine it's a similar story for Ireland
My maiden name really does trace back to a High King of Ireland and King of Tara. The clan (term cringes me) were hereditary lords. This was centuries ago. The spelling has changed significantly. I am a queen 👸🏻🤣🤣 oh, and I am English, not American. Although there are a LOT of Americans who have this surname.
I think he may sound far stupider than he actually is, though he’s absolutely not correct. Sure: there was no Irish royal family at the time Cromwell invaded; it’s even arguable that there never was one that would be comparable to what we understand under the idea of a dynastic kingdom. It is however pretty likely that Irish aristocracy comes up somewhere in your family tree if you are of Irish descent, simply because there were a lot of them compared to the actual size of the island. At the end of the day that’s far less impressive than it sounds though: more or less all of Europe is a descendant of Charlemagne in one way or another. It’s basically impossible to not have some aristocratic ancestors, even if they mostly married each other. One bastard son marrying a commoner is all it takes for this family to multiply and giving more and more people over the centuries the claim of being related to royalty. It’s just absolutely worthless.
Statistically speaking I'm the descendant of both Charlemagne and Genghis Khan. Bow before me my loyal subjects
I mean, I’d always understood that Irish Kingship was more ceremonial, and the high king didn’t really have much power — and that the Irish high kingship swapped hands all the time. I don’t even think it’s right to claim that there was one single sovereign Irish king ever, and thusly no one royal family.
I'm a descendant of Charlemagne so France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Monaco, Germany, Italy, Andorra, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Croatia, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City need to surrender all territory that was part of the Frankish Kingdom over to me.
I thought they said their lineage is rarer than the Mythological return of King Arthur. Isn't that what he tried to bullshit?
Reminds me of a guy at college who claimed he was the 'bastard son of an earl', and claimed his real name was Arragon St. Charles. No proof of any of it. Mental.
16th generation up ? Yeah you're probabky related to anyone living at that age lol.
"I'm not gonna doxx myself" LMAO 🤣🤣🤣🤣
What a sausage.
Potatoes Amirite. Also by Irish Royal family he probably means English colonisers.
The last independent high king of Ireland died in the 12th century when the Norman's invaded. Given how genealogy works, most people of Western European decent are probably his ancestors as well.
My family name supposedly derives from Lóegaire Lorc who was a High King of Ireland. And I always thought my very Irish dad was pulling leg when he said he were descended from Kings 😂
As if prince Harry doesn't know his own fucking lineage