I have learned that we are distantly related to several U.S. Presidents, including George Washington, Martin Van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes, Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and both Presidents Bush. This is not unusual. Many U.S. presidents are descended from early American colonists, most of them ordinary people. Families were often large in those days, and many of those people left many descendants.
We have a couple of fairly close relatives who were somewhat well known, but not as famous as a US President. One was Dave Fultz, a second cousin of Dowie, who was a professional baseball player in the early years of the twentieth century. He led the American League in runs scored in 1902, while playing for the Philadelphia Athletics under Connie Mack.
Another close relative who became quite successful was Edward G. Watkins. He was a second cousin of Fanny Crane Grier, the mother of Edgar B. Grier Jr.. Edward Watkins invented the first practical time clock, and founded the Simplex Time Recorder company, which is today part of the Simplex-Grinnell division of Tyco Fire and Security. His grandson, Edward G. Watkins III, is on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans.
Royal Ancestry
Col. Richard Townley (died 1711) – Col. Richard Townley was a fifth great-grandfather of Edgar B. Grier Jr. on his mother’s side (the Crane family). Richard Townley was descended from a family of landed gentry in England. (“Landed gentry” refers to an upper class family that owned a large amount of land and lived off rental income from that property, but the head of the family did not have a title.) Richard Townley came to America in the retinue of Francis Howard, Lord Effingham, who became Governor of Virginia in 1683. Townley moved to Elizabethtown (later Elizabeth), NJ in 1684, and became quite successful there. He was a descendant of Richard de Sherburne (died 1441), who in turn was descended from both King William I “The Lion” of Scotland (1143-1214) and Charlemagne (747-813). He was also a descendant of Sir Thomas Giffard (abt 1345-1394), who in turn was descended from King Malcolm II of Scotland and King Aethelred II The Unready of England.
It may seem strange to learn that we have royal ancestry. After all, we’re just ordinary Americans. It turns out that probably millions of Americans have at least one traceable royal line, usually from a colonial ancestor. For example, President George W. Bush has several such lines. A number of genealogists have published books and articles about the royal ancestry of various colonial American settlers. Most of these settlers were from families that were landed gentry or minor nobility. Typically they were descended from medieval English or Scottish kings. Some of these colonial ancestors now have thousands or tens of thousands of living descendants.
You may find it interesting to look up your various royal ancestors in an encyclopedia or on the Internet. Of course, these people had an extraordinary involvement in the history of their country. Before I began doing genealogy, I didn’t know much about medieval English and Scottish history, but it’s really quite interesting. There were an amazing number of wars, a number of murders of ruling kings and of contenders to the throne, and lots of intrigue. Even though they’re interesting, it’s very difficult for me to think of these ancestors as “family”.
Finding a royal line, or at least a noble line, is about the only way to trace an ancestry back before about 1500. Before that time, very few people could read or write, and there were no parish registers or any other records of common people. Records were kept of nobility and royalty, because it was important to know who was next in line for a title if the holder of that title died.
People sometimes ask me how far back I’ve traced my family. I usually answer that my Lathrop line goes back to the 1500s in England, which is true. But the real answer is that one of our lines goes back 49 generations to Clovis the Riparian who was living in 420 AD. Clovis was the tenth-great-grandfather of Charlemagne and was King of Cologne at a time when the Roman Empire still existed. I’ve seen lines of descent that go back much farther, to Cyrus the Great of Persia, who died in 530 B.C. However, these lines are based on considerably more conjecture than what genealogists usually deal with and are fairly controversial.