Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1902-07-17
MYSTERIES OF GENEALoGY.
Kruger Descended From Rob Roy 1no
Edward VII From Irish kinu.

Kruger Descended From Rob Roy 7no
Edward VII From Irish King.
| received the other day a letter
tending to prove that Mr. Kruger is
of the blood royal of England and
might, under circumstances which We
must all hope may never happen, be
come claimant to the British throne.
The writer founded his argument on
the alleged descent of Mr.. Kruger
from Rob Roy, who was descended
from Edward III of England.
This has led another genealogist,
writing from the Celtic Fringe" to
send me an elaborate table showing
that King Edward traces his descent
from Dermont McMurrogh, King of
Leinster. Dermont McMurrogh, as
every schoolboy knows, married his
daughter Eva to Richard, Earl OF
Pembroke, from whom was descended
Robert the Bruce and the Stuart
Kings of Scotland and England. This
may be interesting, but, as the Cam
bridge wrangler said of the "Iliad"
do not quite see what it proves, uu,
less it be that King Edward VII has
a claim to the allegiance of Irishmen
which Mr. Kruger can never aspire to.
Some years ago | had little pas.
sage at arms with a gentleman who
was prepared to prove the royal
descent of almost any man in the
street for a payment of $40 down.
When | limited some doubt to his
bona fdes he called upon me and
showed by fairly plausible argument
that almost everybody has royal blood
in his veins, if he only knew it.
When you remember, on the one
hand, that you had two grandfathers
and two grandmothers, 8 ancestors in
the previous generation, 16 in the
generation before that, and so on, and,
on the other, that as you go back
the population of the country de,
creases-at the time of the Conquest
it was probably not a tenth of what
it is now-you can easily see that
the present inhabitants of these
islands could not all be supplied with
ancestors unless the same people were
used over and over again Each
ancestor must, in fact, do duty for so
many descendants that the probability
is that we all of us have a great many
of them in common. That is why the
majority of people have royal
progenitors somewhere in the dim
vista of the past. | expect, therefore,
that If we came to look into 1t we
should find a great many men in the
street with quite as good claims to the
English crown as Mr.. X. This re
Election cannot fail to bring comfort
to many of my readers.
While writing this | remember a
curious illustration of the ramifica
tions of genealogies. A friend Of
mine once told me that in a Dorset
shire village near him there was a
family of agricultural laborers bearing
the name of Percy and claiming kin.
ship with the duke of Northumber
land. They had a traditional record
of their descent from some Percy who
had settled in Wessex many genera
tions ago. My friend has a portrait
of the very last descendant of his
line of Percys-an imposing-lookiEg
old yokel in smock frock and a tall
hat. There are other cases Of
aristocratic families ending in line
Of agricultural laborers, and III
Wessex, too. The genealogy of he
D'Urberville family in Mr.. Hardy's
Tess is, I believe, founded on fact.
All this is quite new to me, and
may possibly be to my readers-at
any rate. on this side of the Tweed
We Sassenachs, who have no history
before the comparatively modern date
of Hengist and Horsa. are deplorably
ignorant Of the antiquity Of the
Celtis Fringe. After all, the story OIL
the invasion of Spain by Malcham,
the Moabite and his "brithet Scots"
and the birth Of the first MacAlpine,
the grandson Of King Solomon, IS an
affair Of yesterday beside the famlly
history Of the MacPhersons:
Phairson has a son
Who married Noah's daughter,
And nearly spoilt the Flood
BY drinking up the water,
Which he would have done
|, at least, believe it.
Had the mixture been
Only half Glenliyet.
London Truth.
Mrs r. Helgerson Of Atwood ave