The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1897-06-03
American Descendants from William
The Conqueror.
DR.. Dovid Jordan, in June Arena.

We can show mathomatlcally LnaG
the child of today must have had
at the time of Alfred the Great an an
cestry of S7O,672, 100000 persons. In
the time of William the Conqueror
(thirty generatlons) this number reach
es $685., O94, 592. This is shown by the
ordinary process of computation-two
parents, four grandparents, eight great
grandparents, and so on. AS the num-
Der of Englishmen in Alfred's time, or
even in Williams, was but a very small
traction, these ancestors must have
been repeated many times in the calcu-
lation. Each person who leaves des-
cendants is link in the great chain of
life, or rather a strand in life's great
network. The blood OF each single
person in Alfred's time who LETT capa-
BILE descendants enduring to our day is
represented in every family of strict En-
glish descent. In other words, every
Englishman is descended from Al
tired the Great ; as very likely also from
the peasant woman whose cakes Alfred
reputed to have burned. Moreover,
there are few if any who do not share
the blood of William the Conqueror.
Most ancestral lines, if they could be
traced, would go back to him by hun
dred different strains. In fact there are
few families In the south and east OF
England who have not more Norman
blood than the present royal family.
The House of Guelph holds the throne
not through nearness to William, but
through primogenture, a. thing very
different from heredity.
Mr.. Edward J. Edwards, of Minneap-
oils, has recently sent me some very IN
teresting studies in genealogy yet un-
published. These concern the lineage
of his little daughter, my niece, Mary
Stockton Edwards.
Mr. Edwards finds that the little girl,
like millions of others, is descended
through at least two different lines
from William the Conqueror. The
lineage of one OF these leads in thirty
two generations through the family
names of Jordan, Hawley, Waldo, Ell
derkin, Drake, Granville, Courteney,
de Bohun, and Plantagenet to William
the Conqueror. Sir Humphrey de
Bohun married Elizabeth Plantagenej
daughter of Sir Edward l. In the an
cestry OF King Edward are the Saxon
kings, Cedric, Egbert, Alfred, Ethelred,
while lntermarriage with other royal
lines brings in Hengist, Hugh Capet,
Charlemagne, Ohio the Great, Duncan,
Rurik, Igor, San Ferdinando, and a
host of other notables whom one would
have less right to be proud. The
Courteneys, earls of Devon, are again
descended from the royal lines of France
(Hugh CapeD and Russia, but not
from William the Conqueror. To
Courteney and Plantogenet again the
Edwards lineage has been traced along
another and quite different line.
The seventy family names, more or
less, traced in the first series, contain
ing perhaps thousand representatives,
are only so many out of billions, if
there we're no Implications. If there
had been no repetitions, there would
be instead of the thousand known an
cestors, four billions of persons between
Mary Stockton Edwards and William
the Conqueror. The generalogy is
therefore but strand from an enor-
nous network, which it written out in
full would cover the earth with names.
Only through the family pride of the
Courteneys and brakes this fragment
of personal descent and personal histo-
ry happened to be preserved. By mere
chance, the plebeian record of the pie
beian descendants OF the Puritan John
Drake of Windsor forms a junction
with the sacred annals of English peer
age.
Most OF the English people in these
records lived in Devon and Sassex,
from which region their descendants
came to America. The subordinate
lines traced out lead to the feudal lords
Of these two counties. The interesting
fact, however, is that in this there is
exceptional. These people
in America we're New England farmers
for.the most part, squires, and ship
wrights, with a lineage or character in
no respect singular. Their sole impor-
tant heritage was "the Puritan con-
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