I’m still waiting for a sequel called Ralph Breaks the Interregnum.
What I’m thinking of really happened. Maybe it was a German title. But it was inherited by like a fifth cousin as the closest male heir.
hijack: either I lost my google-fu or Google Search has gotten worse. This is now the second event I know happened yet no matter how I phrase the search, it keeps pulling up the same stories over and over and over.
You might have seen this:
Sounds like the kind of thing you’d better ask an LLM for.
If you want a hallucinated answer. Thats the problem with Google nowadays, long before they added their AI answers they added a bunch of AI on the back end so it could answer less specific “natural language” type questions better but that made it far worse at answering specific questions.
Or again maybe not.
This really happened.
This does happen. And, the older title is, the more scope there is for to happen, because with each successive generation there is a larger and larger pool of people, more and more distantly related to one another, who are descended from the original grantee of the title. A couple of examples:
- In 1975, the 17th Duke of Norfolk died and was succeeded by his second cousin one removed.
- The ninth Duke of Atholl died unmarried in 1957 and was succeeded his fourth cousin twice removed — their common ancestor, the third Duke, had died in 1774. The tenth Duke was also unmarried and when he died in 1996 the title passed to his second cousin once removed — a South African who had never lived in the UK (and who remained in South Africa).
When the holder of a title also owns lands, estates and property the heir, however distantly related, is usually identified and is well aware of their status before The Day Comes, so they are not surprised when they acquire a title. But there have been cases where there is no signficant property inheritance, and an heir is only idenfitied by genealogists when The Occasion Arises, and people are told that they have inherited a title that they did not know they were in line for.
When the 9th Duke and 10th Earl of Portland died in 1990, his dukedom became extinct. But his earldom passed to his sixth cousin. The common ancestor, the 1st Earl, had died in 1709.
YES! That’s the one I was thinking of. I was looking up the Duke of Atholl on wackypedia although now I couldn’t tell you why. See, it wasn’t a “Downton Abbey” thing (which I have never seen)
Different sources characterise the relationship differently: I also see “third cousin three times removed.” Any links to a genealogy?
They could be both at the same time.
I don’t have any links to a genealogy, but I would point out that in the British upper classes multiple connections beween individuals are not at all uncommon. Your fourth cousin twice removed could very easily also be your third cousin three times removed.
True, but the peerage is only going to pass through one of those relationships.
Right, I read that if your family has lived in England for a couple hundred years, you are pretty much related to everyone who has done the same. This is why I stopped watching “Last Week Tonight” he kept harping on the fact the dear Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip were “cousins” over and over and over- they are actually just 2nd or 3rd cousins. (Marrying a 2nd cousin is perfectly kosher- and his never mention that) And no doubt his parents- IF their families had lived there for a couple centuries - were also cousins. Pretty much everyone in England is a cousin of their spouse, given that set of parameters. Sure, might be 4th cousins or something.
And sure, many Brit royals are legit targets, but not Queen Elizabeth, she was great.
Second cousins AND third cousins - they’re related in multiple lines.
In Philip’s case though, not by virtue of living in England but because all of European royalty was closely related through centuries of intermarriage. Philip was a prince of Greece and Denmark, and his parents were from German royal houses. But in common with many European royals, both he and Elizabeth were direct descendants of Victoria.
That explains the teeth.
(I’m kidding! I’m kidding!)
So is marrying a first cousin in most countries, including England.
Hell, Frank and Elanor Roosevelt were fifth cousins and nobody ever brings that up.
When George Bush was running against John Kerry, I heard a report on NPR that mentioned that they were 4th cousins. The reporter said that this was not particularly significant because he, also from New England, was 4th cousins to both of them.