Category Archives: Royalty

Who was Eleanor Whitney’s mother?

To most of you, the name Eleanor Whitney probably doesn’t mean a thing – and why should it? She was a late Medieval woman about whom extremely little is known. She is not even known to have done anything particularly … Continue reading

Posted in Genealogy, Herefordshire, Marriage, Medieval Ancestry, Royalty, Wales, Women | Leave a comment

Victorian mourning

We are all familiar with the quintessential image of Queen Victoria in her widow’s weeds, dressed from head to foot in deep mourning for her beloved Albert, the Prince Consort. “Why may the earth not swallow me up?”, wrote an … Continue reading

Posted in Death, England, Genealogy, Marriage, Royalty, Women, World War I | 1 Comment

Divorced, beheaded, died…

Today we’re taking a slight detour from my own family tree to delve into the genealogy of a man who needs no introduction: King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547). The image of the gout-ridden, middle-aged Tudor monarch sporting a ginger … Continue reading

Posted in Genealogy, Royalty | 1 Comment

Jane Austen’s family tree

Like so many other great British female authors, such as Virginia Woolf or the three Brontë sisters, English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) was a wonderful and prolific writer, but left no children. But although there are no descendants of the … Continue reading

Posted in England, Famous Genealogy, Genealogy, Ireland, Marriage, Royalty, Ships, Women | 9 Comments

The day that Great-granddaddy met the King

The other day I walked into one of my favourite bookshops in town: Librería Arenas. As I am writing researching and writing about the history of my grandmother’s family, I was wondering whether there might be a good reference book … Continue reading

Posted in England, Galicia, Genealogy, La Coruña, Lyonshall, Royalty, Santiago de Compostela, Ships, Spain, War | 1 Comment