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:
“An Englishman, methinks,—not to speak of other European nations,—habitually regards himself merely as a constituent part of the English nation; he is a member of the royal regiment of Englishmen, and is proud of his company, as he has reason to be proud of it. But an American—one who has made tolerable use of his opportunities—cares, comparatively, little about such things, and is advantageously nearer to the primitive and the ultimate condition of man in these respects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And every stone shall cry,
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)