United States
Royal descent is now recognized as not infrequent among residents of the United States, as in other countries. At one time, publications on this matter stressed royal connections for only a few families. One example included James Pierpont and others. Too, we see NEHGS articles on "tycoon" families and US presidents of royal descent that emphasize the discriminating notion. That is, those of royal descent excel (to wit, Roberts' article on eminent descendants of Mrs. Alice Freeman Thompson Parke). Many, too, were at the forefront of social progress, for example, Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her progressive beliefs.
However, with improved documenting methodologies, it can be estimated that as many as 150 million Americans have traceable royal European descent. According to American genealogist Gary Boyd Roberts, an expert on royal descent, most Americans with significant New England Yankee, Mid-Atlantic Quaker, or Southern planter ancestry are descended from medieval kings, especially those of England, Scotland, and France. William Addams Reitwiesner documented many U.S. descendants of Renaissance and modern monarchs. Some Americans may have royal descents through German immigrants who had an illegitimate descent from German royalty.
Due to primogeniture, many colonists of high social status were younger children of English aristocratic families who came to America looking for land because, given their birth order, they could not inherit. Many of these immigrants initially enjoyed high standing where they settled. They could often claim royal descent through a female line or illegitimate descent. Some Americans descend from these 17th-century British colonists who had royal descent. There were at least 650 colonists with traceable royal ancestry, and 387 left descendants in America (almost always numbering many thousands, and some as many as one million). These colonists with royal descent settled in every state, but a large majority lived in Massachusetts or Virginia. Several families which settled in those states, over the two hundred years or more since the colonial land grants, intertwined their branches to the point that almost everyone was somehow related to everyone else. One writer observed, "like a tangle of fish hooks".
Over time, opposing factors have affected the percentage of Americans who have provable royal descent. The passage of the generations has further intermingled the ancestry of the English colonists' descendants, thus increasing the percentage who descend from one of the immigrants with royal ancestry. At the same time, however, waves of post-colonial immigrants from other countries decreased the percentage who have royal descent.
Read more about this topic: Royal Descent
Famous quotes related to united states:
“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Europe and the U.K. are yesterday’s world. Tomorrow is in the United States.”
—R.W. ‘Tiny’ Rowland (b. 1917)
“I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.”
—Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)