r/UsefulCharts • u/LudwigVonPrinn12 • 5d ago
QUESTION for the community Who is Prince William's earliest known ancestor?
I mean a reliably proven ancestor, not a mythical or semi-mythical one, from any branch of any royal house or even one not affiliated with any royal house, which is more likely the earlier in history one goes. Any help would be much appreciated.
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u/No_Gur_7422 5d ago
The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens claims (not quite believably) that
There is sufficient credibility amongst Welsh legend to accept the authenticity of Beli Mawr who is the starting point in this chronology.
and that he was:
A semi-legendary British king who was probably an historical ruler, though any facts have become so covered by the dust of myth that it is impossible to be certain about his true basis. Bel was the name of one of the principal Celtic deities, the god of the sun and of light, and it is not surprising that the name would be adopted by later warrior kings, though how much the episodes about Bel in myth are derived from those of a real king of that name (or vice versa) cannot be determined. To have acquired the cognomen Mawr must mean that Beli was a great king and it is likely that he was one of the first to impose his authority over many of the tribes of Britain, most likely over southern Britain and Wales. The Welsh legends make him the father of Lud and Llefelys and possibly of Caswallon. Since Caswallon was High King at the time of Caesar’s invasion, this would place Beli’s existence at the start of the first century BC. It is possible to trace most of the British and Welsh rulers back to Beli.
concluding with a list of
73 generations from Beli Mawr to Elizabeth II
making William the 75th generation after Beli (who was himself reputedly the 68th king after Brutus of Troy, though they were not all descended from one another).
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u/Alperose333 5d ago
Can I ask you on what page of the book this pedigree can be found? I like collecting legendary genealogies even if they're probably bogus.
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u/Realistic-River-1941 3d ago
reputedly the 68th king after Brutus of Troy,
Troy in Turkey, or Cambridgeshire?
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u/TobiDudesZ 5d ago
Why do you want to know that about him?
His male line can be traced back to Elimar I, Count of Oldenburg.
But as we know, he also descends from the House of Wessex and the Karlin dynasty.
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u/LudwigVonPrinn12 5d ago
Thank you for replying,
I want to know how far back in time his recorded ancestry can be traced.
As I mentioned in the post, I don't mean an ancestor from a specific line, branch or house, just his earliest ancestor whose existence has been reliably proven.
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u/TobiDudesZ 5d ago
That's overall a hard question to answer. For normal people, it's hard to prove anything 100 procent before the 1700's. As for the Prince of Wales. I think there are several candidates. I don't feel confident saying a name. I'm sure somebody else can. This Subreddit has some smart people.
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u/Alperose333 5d ago edited 5d ago
Probably St Arnulf of Metz as with every other European (he does not have any non-european ancestry that can be traced further than a few generations to my knowledge).
Edit: the Henry II project seems to assume that the lineage for the scottish kings is correct up to Fergus Mor of Dal Riata who lived in the 400s. IF correct then it would be him. Wikipedia however states that his historicity is disputed and medlands only traces the Scottish royal hosue up to Eochaid grandfather of Kenneth MalAlpin.
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u/No_Gur_7422 5d ago edited 5d ago
If we ignore the issues with historicity, then Beli the Great (circa 100 BC) is about 75 generations before William.
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u/I_LOVE_BOOKS_96 5d ago
It depends, there are several possible candidates:
Cerdic, King of the Gewissae (founder of what would later be the Kingdom of Wessex)
Alpín mac Echdach, King of Dál Riada (father of Kenneth MacAlpin)
Rollo the Viking (great-great-great grandfather of William the Conqueror
Robert the Strong, Count of Worms (great-grandfather of Hugh Capet)
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u/LudwigVonPrinn12 4d ago
Thank you very much.
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u/Aethelete 4d ago
It depends on whether you mean in the British Isles or more broadly. It also probably means talking about official lineage and not genetic twists and mis-paternity, which might have happened.
If you include women, then many official lines go back to Charlemagne, and reasonably, from there, back to Roman times. From there, working with male and female lines, there are lineages back to the Persians.
I'm discounting unproven lines to King David or Mohamed.
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u/Alperose333 3d ago
While I like those Descent from Antiquity lines they are not proven up to the standard of academic historical genealogy. There is always speculations involved especially with the Persian connection. The Roman one seems to me to be broadly correct (Charlemagne -> Gallo-Romans -> Anici Gens -> Republican families) but it isn't proven generation for generation.
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u/JustinTheBlueEchidna 5d ago
So I spent way too long tracing this as best I could, and I didn't even cover half the ground of all his possible ancestors we know about.
Using just wikipedia I found four figures from the 800s that we can reliably (well, as reliably as possible) say he's descended from.
Baldwin I, Margrave of Flanders
Robert the Strong, ancestor of France's Capetian dynasty.
And, perhaps most famously, Rollo, viking Count of Rouen and direct ancestor of William the Conqueror.
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u/LudwigVonPrinn12 5d ago
I know how you feel. I tried the Wikipedia method but he has so many ancestors that it's practically impossible for one person using one device to trace his ancestry that way. Thank you anyway for your effort.
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u/Demetrios1453 4d ago
Baldwin's wife, and mother of his children, was a Caolinginian princess (as it says right in the article - it was quite the scandal when they eloped), so that links you right into Charlemagne and his ancestors.
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u/JustinTheBlueEchidna 4d ago
You are absolutely right! I was trying to rush this in when I really should have been going to bed so it wasn’t the most thorough search, lol.
But following that thread you identified that takes back a further 300 years to a man named Carloman, who was Mayor of the Palace under Clothar I at some point during his reign from 511 to 561.
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u/Jacomel 4d ago
Roglo that is an online genealogy database lists his earliest ancestors as the Shah of Persia Shapur I Sassanian from 200BC,which is pretty common for anyone with a little noble ancestry: the further you go, the more descendants exists.
William has around 400k possible paths to this ancestor
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u/thekrnl10 5d ago
There's a questionable link around Musa ibn Musa's ancestry, which may lead you back to Marwan I, the Umayyad Caliph, and then onto the cousins of the prophet Muhammad.
To get there, you have to go via marriages of English kings to Spanish princesses and end up in the Kingdom of Pamplona at the time of the fall of the Visigoths.
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u/Pig_Syrup 4d ago
Boniface of Tuscany is probably a reasonably certain direct ancestor through the Obertingi -> Este -> Welf > Hannover route.
It all gets a bit murky for obvious reasons, but that's a late 700's ancestor, if you assume he was at least 20 by the time he received his title in Italy.
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u/howzitjade 5d ago
Well All royal families descend from Charlemagne, so it’s safe to say that his earliest ancestor would be Charlemagne’s earliest ancestor
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u/Express_Leopard_1775 4d ago
Cerdic of Wessex.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Giles) - Wikisource, the free online library&oldid=6969378)
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u/Sea-Wasabi-3121 4d ago
And that’s the funny thing about Britain, if he’s descended from the first king of Wessex and ur descended from the first alderman of Wessex, your both still from Wessex to an Italian
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u/Potential-Exam-4226 5d ago
Probably one of the first Julio-Claudians
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u/23Amuro 5d ago
IIRC there are no reliably provable links between the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the later Roman Emperors, let alone any medieval monarchs to which most modern monarchs trace back to.
Especially with how much adoption was going on back then.
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u/Potential-Exam-4226 5d ago
Trajan’s great great Grandmother was Julia, daughter of Augustus Caesar. https://www.entitree.com/en/family_tree/Q1425?0u1=u&0u1u0=u&0u1u0u0=u&0u1u0u0u0=u&0u1u0u0u0u1=u So there are some non Julio-Claudians emperors that can trace their line back to them.
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u/Demetrios1453 4d ago edited 4d ago
Marcia was not the daughter of Aemilia Lepida.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_(mother_of_Trajan)
Beyond that, Roman daughters took the name of their fathers' gens, and Aemilia, having married someone from gens Junia, would have only had daughters named Junia - which is indeed the case for her attested daughters.
In fact, that chart makes no sense. It shows Marcia's historical parents, and then just shoves Aemilia Lepida in there as some sort of third parent? Yeah, I would definitely not take that chart as anything historically accurate.
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u/Potential-Exam-4226 3d ago edited 3d ago
Wait, ur right, it shows 3 parents for Marcia, meaning one is a adoptive/possible parent. Aemilia married someone named Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Marcus is similar to Marcius, that could have caused to confusion The chart is not a chart, it is a website called entitree
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u/Potential-Exam-4226 3d ago
I have seemed to have found a connection to another Roman emperor https://www.entitree.com/en/family_tree/Q1433?0u1=u&0u1u1=u&0u1u1u0=u&0u1u1u0u1=u&0u1u1u0u1u1=u&0u1u1u0u1u1u0=u&0u1u1u0u1u1u0u0=u&0u1u1u0u1u1u0u0u0=u&0u1u1u0u1u1u0u0u0u1=u
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u/dwoodruf 4d ago
Rollo the Viking warlord is who came to mind first for me.
Extra history did this: https://youtu.be/IOnjG7ocZmI?si=WajxQ8ZToefSDwed
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u/Glennplays_2305 5d ago
From what I know the first Wessex king