The forensic genealogy that identified Richard III moves on apace

Almost six years ago now, it was confirmed that the remains identified under a car park in Leicester were those of Richard III. One of the principal components of this identification was that the remains shared the mtDNA of Michael Ibsen, a maternal line relative traced by John Ashdown-Hill, as was Wendy Duldig by the…

Royal genealogy before it happens (3)

(as published in the Setember 2018 Bulletin) Seven years ago, before this blog officially began, a letter was published in the Ricardian Bulletin about the common Edward III descent of the Duke and Duchess, as she soon became, of Cambridge through the Gascoigne-Fairfax line. This, about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s mutual ancestry, followed…

Um, where’s Lionel of Clarence in this scheme of things….?

Well, well, this author appears to have expunged Lionel of Clarence and his line from the annals of history, in order to make the Lancastrian claim to the throne senior to that of York. When, thanks to Lionel, it ended up the other way around. Lionel was the 2nd son of Edward III, Lancaster the…

Richard III and Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar aka ‘El Cid’

To continue my series of posts about Richard’s notable genealogical connections, my latest discovery is that he was directly descended from Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar – El Cid! This time the connection is through his mother’s line and you can see the tree below (in two parts) with red dots showing the direct line of…

James Tyrrell’s Ancestor

You may know or suspect from a previous post in Murrey and Blue, that Sir James Tyrrell, Richard’s henchman, was a direct descendant of Sir Walter Tyrrell, the ‘Killer Baron’, who fled during a hunting expedition with King William II (Rufus) after shooting him with an arrow. It is not known whether this was an…

Where to find that “Tudor” Y-chromosome?

This very good blog post details the career and planned future of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, who might have succeeded Henry VIII had he not died suddenly at seventeen and a legitimate half-brother been born a year and a quarterlater. It also states his original and current burial places, the latter being St. Michael’s…

Anyone for tennis?

There is an issue with Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia, who was shot and beheaded by Vikings, today in 869. He isn’t England’s patron saint, although he is far more English than St. George, who is thought to have originated in modern-day Turkey or Syria. However, unlike St. Edward the Confessor, whose brother-in-law…

More Tyrrells, this time in Oxfordshire. One family or two?

This (below) is Shotover Park in Oxfordshire, formerly part of the Wychwood royal hunting forest. It became the property of one Timothy Tyrrell in 1613, the year after the death of Henry Stuart,  Prince of Wales, whom Tyrrell had served as Master of the Royal Buckhounds. Tyrrell was further honoured with a knighthood in 1624…

The Scrope and Welles marriages of Edward IV’s daughter….

Ralph, 9th Baron Scrope of Masham, was—through his Greystoke mother—the great-grandson of Joan Beaufort and therefore great-great-grandson of John of Gaunt and Katherine de Roët. This made him the great-great-great-grandson of Edward III. (For the path, follow the purple line in the following chart.) What this blood did not do was give him expectations. *…

Another eleventh century struggle

This article reveals the little-known sequel to the battle of Hastings. It took place in North Devon, between Appledore and Northam near Bideford, on 26 June 1069 and was led by Brian of Brittany and Alan the Black for the Normans against Godwine and Edmund, sons of Harold II, for the Anglo-Saxon “resistance”. The result…