A royal descent is a lineal descent from a monarch. Royal descent is sometimes claimed as a mark of distinction and is seen as a desirable goal of genealogy research. Pretenders, impostors and those hoping to improve their social status have often claimed royal descent and, as a result, fabricated lineages are common. The importance of royal descent to some genealogists has been criticized.
Due to the incompleteness of records, the number of people who claim royal descent is much smaller than the number who can actually prove it it. Genealogists and geneticists have attempted to estimate the percentage of various populations that have a royal descent.
Read more about Royal Descent: Europe, United States, Africa, Proving Royal Descent, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words royal and/or descent:
“Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)
“And every stone shall cry,
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)