LONDON, UK (CNN) — Is Kate Middleton a commoner? It may sound like a crass question, but it’s one being asked of genealogists when it comes to the roots of the future queen of England.
Experts have researched Kate’s family history since Prince William started dating her years ago. CNN’s Jim Boulden sat down with the CEO of the New England Historic Genealogical Society to talk about the group’s recently released book: “The Ancestry of Catherine Middleton.”
D. Brenton Simons says, “We were banking on this one and it was clear that it was a serious relationship. So researchers on both sides of the Atlantic have been working on it literally for years.”
Boulden says, “Some of the papers here like to call Catherine or Kate common. Is she common?” Simons replies, “Well, we’ve heard that point of view and she does have an ancestry different from any another princess, certainly. The ancestry is primarily English. It’s northern. A lot of ancestors in Leeds and Yorkshire and it is what you would describe as working class. She also has a line that is gentry, a gentry family, the Fairfaxes. They go back to the Gasgoines and ultimately to nobility and royalty. And we also have learned that she is fairly close cousin to Guy Richie the film director and the former husband of Madonna.”
Boulden says, “In that way then, it makes her a princess of the people.” Simons replies, “Well, I think that’s right. And I think what’s interesting is that the future royal family will have ancestry really in all British classes. But then there are also folks who had maybe more hard scrubbed existence – charwomen, laborers, messengers. In fact a messenger who was imprisoned at Holloway in 1881.
Boulden asks, “Do you think she knows that?” Simons responds, “Probably not. Not much is known about her. We think this person was imprisoned for debts.”
Boulden asks, “So how’s Kate related to Diana Princess of Wales? Or are they related?” Simons responds, “She is related to Diana. She’s a distant cousin through the Gasgoine family, through that gentry family which also connects her to the Queen Mother and even to George Washington in America. She is a 14th cousin once removed to Prince William and she is a 15th cousin to the queen.
Read the full article in the April 11, 1011 edition of todaysthv.com.
