On 27 August 2013, TLC aired an episode of WDYTYA? starring supermodel Cindy Crawford as the featured
celebrity. She discovered that she had a
colonial lineage that traced back to Thomas Trowbridge, her 10th
great grandfather. He was involved with
the Siege of Taunton, England during their civil war in 1645. She met with professional genealogists who
presented her with impressive scrolls that outlined her lineage to Trowbridge,
and ultimately a very fancy scroll that traced back about 30 generations to
Charlemagne and early kings of Europe.
According to Matthew Deighton of Ancestry.com, the research
team at WDYTYA? spent more than 1000 hours of research on Cindy Crawford’s
story. Imagine how many hours this would
take amateur genealogists to research?
Most viewers watching this show have never done any family history
research. Do they believe that they can
walk into a repository or archive and be handed generations of genealogy? Does
this support the myth that you can connect online at Ancestry.com and
immediately find an impressive lineage back to someone famous?
I’ve been at the Nashua Family History center and witnessed
folks walking in off the street demanding to see their family history. At the reading room at the NEHGS library in
Boston I overheard a man requesting to see specifically “The last six
generations of my family tree in book form, not microfilm, please”. The ensuing discussion with the genealogist
behind the desk was quite humorous.
Although I am descended of too many farmers, paupers and simple laborers to count, I have found links between several colonial ancestors and
royal lineages. It took me hundreds of
hours to reach that colonial immigrant ancestor, and then I relied on books
such as Gary Boyd Roberts’ book
The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the
American Colonies, or websites such as William Addams Reitwiesner’s
http://wargs.com/ databases of European royalty
and nobility. Using these resources is
the closest thing I know to being handed an impressive lineage scroll. Someone else has done the work, and you need
to verify your connection. Just go to
the NEHGS website at
www.americanancestors.org
and try the library catalog search using the subject “families of royal descent”
and you will find over 150 books and manuscripts.
Never forget the hundreds, or thousands of hours it took to
get to this point. And take this gift with a grain of salt. I’ve pored over these genealogies and found
many semi-mythical ancestors such as the Scandinavian descents from Odin, or
ancient British king like Arthur or Beli Mawr, who also connect to biblical
descents according to some genealogies (including Adam and Eve). You must remember that historically the
royalty maintained these written genealogies to prove they had “the blood of
the gods” or inherited privilege.
Google the “Stone of Scone” to see how this tradition and myth is still perpetuated in
the British Monarchy.
This episode seemed be about name collecting, which is something Ancestry.com and other websites are blamed for promoting. There was no mention of the 1000 hours I learned from Matthew Deighton. As a spokesperson for Ancestry.com, it would have been nice if the viewers knew that the verification of those many, many generations of Cindy Crawford's lineage took a long, long time and an entire team of researchers.Someone had to spend hours verifying this documentation. You can read all about this process at the ProGenealogist blog post here:
http://www.progenealogists.com/whodoyou.htm
Some resources for working with royal and noble descents
Europe:
The Royal Descents of 600
Immigrants to the American Colonies, by Gary Boyd Roberts, Baltimore:
Genealogical Pub. Co, 2008
Ancestral Roots of Certain
American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700, by Frederick Lewis
Weis, Baltimore, Md: Genealogical Pub. Co, 2004.
American Ancestors and Cousins of
the Princess of Wales by Gary Boyd Roberts, Baltimore: Genealogical
Pub. Co., 1984
Ancestral Roots of Sixty
Colonists Who Came to New England between 1623 and 1650: The lineage of Alfred
the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and some of
their descendants, by Frederick Lewis Weis, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical
Pub. Co, 1982.
Ancestry of Catherine Middleton:
Who Will Marry Prince William of Wales 29 April 2011, compiled by
William Addams Reitwiesner, edited by
Christopher Challender Child and Scott
Campbell Steward, NEHGS, 2011.
The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215,
The Barons Named in the Magna Charta, and some of their Descendants, by
Arthur Adams, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co, 1964.
Medieval English Ancestors of
Certain Americans: Many of the English Ancestral Lines Prior to 1300,
by Carl Boyer, Santa Clarita, CA, 2001.
Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in
Colonial and Medieval Families, Douglas Richardson, Baltimore, Md:
Genealogical Pub. Co, 2011
Royal Families: Americans of
Royal and Noble Ancestry, by Marston Watson, Baltimore: Genealogical
Publishing Co, 2004
Directory of
Royal Genealogical Data by Brian Tompsett, University of Hull, UK
Polynesian:
Native
Hawaiian Genealogy Society website
See the Brian Tompsett website above for other places in
Oceania
Other places in the
world:
Islamic Dynasties by Brian Tompsett , see above
The Royal
Ark website for the Royal and Ruling Houses of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the
Americas
Of special interest:
Papal
Genealogy: The Families and Descendants of the Popes by George L.
Williams, 2004
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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
