In some cases of royal genealogy, it is hard to believe the claim. For example, some people claim to be descended from Charlemagne, King of the Franks, and Emperor of the West. He lived over 1200 years ago and many people could be related to him, but it would be a miracle if any records had survived through fire, flood, worms, and the fury of the Vikings, the Black Plague, and numerous wars to prove such a claim. But it's such fun to look into your family tree and see if there was any royalty involved. What makes it daunting is that many royals had so many titles and names that it is hard to nail them down.



Only Blue-Blooded Persons Need Apply

The main reason why there is a lot of information available when it comes to royal genealogy is that nobility and royalty had deep interest in their own family trees and thus were much taken up with recording the genealogy of their members, because it was very important to know who in fact was noble and who was not. In the beginning, royalty meant having blood that was superior (blue blood) and thus it became necessary to determine the exact role that nobles had to perform so that the possibility of contaminating the bloodline would not arise.

I'm Henry VIII - I Am (Herman's Hermits)

This led to generations of nobility experiencing problems related to congenital aspects and the reason was that there were a number of genes that were improperly formed and were being passed from one generation to another just so there would be no dilution in the purity of the bloodline. And, when this was coupled with constant marriages and also remarriages, the royal genealogy took some very interesting turns, as was the case with King Henry VIII of England, the second monarch of the House of Tudor. He was married six times for Heavens sake. A mnemonic for the fates of Henry's six wives to help remember what happened to them is "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived".

Divergence In Bloodlines

One more thing and this is important. Royal family genealogy resources shows that in the beginning because there were very few nobles with royal blood, a certain amount of intermingling of the bloodline had to take place, and thus any royal genealogy that is undertaken will surely reveal divergence in blood lines which may then meet up again a few generations later when two people with distant relations would come together and thus formed a new line of nobility.

In A Nutshell

Some royal family genealogy bloodlines are easy to trace while others become a tangled maze of conflicting data that precludes the entry in a family tree. And you may not want to brag about some European royalty with fancy pedigrees because there is a list a mile long of madness, congenital malformations, and debauchery in every royal house in Europe, Not only that they were plagued by alcoholism, sadism, plain ugliness, stupidity, and syphilis. They tried to keep the royal line "pure" by inbreeding and the results were devastating. Perhaps the best course of action would be to let sleeping dogs lie, but then you might miss all the fun in Royal Family genealogy resources