Why are we fascinated with royal descents? Most of our ancestors were ordinary people, not nobles or royalty.
Some royals were extremely prolific and lived a very long time ago, so have left vast numbers of traceable descendants, however, and royals are traceable into the distant past when ordinary folk generally are not. For instance, we have accurate dates for the birth, marriages and death of Edward I (born 17 June 1239, first marriage Oct 1254, second marriage 8 Sep 1299, died 7 Jul 1307) while I have only a possible death date for my poor Irish great-great-grandmother, born sometime in the earlier 1800s, and no marriage or birth dates.
People of pedigree
For us genealogists, the key feature of royalty is that they are people of pedigree, carefully recorded.…
