Perhaps Armenia is the only country whose … His daughter, Frances Ellen Strong, who was the princess, great-grandmother, married James Boothby Burke Roche, the third Baron Fermoy. To remind you how this works, a cousin of our Joseph Strong had 28,000 descendants by 1870, Roberts assured me, and if you contemplate how many descendants those 28,000 persons have had within another century, you will see that we are indeed of the family of man. First Published In 10 July 1981, The Spencer Family Coat Of Arms, Granted On 26 May 1504, George John, Second Earl Of Spencer, Whose Notable Ancestors Include King William I Of England, Princess Diana's Paternal Grandmother Countess Cynthia Spencer And Her Father Johnnie In 1924, Princess Diana's Maternal American Great Grandmother Fanny, Princess Diana's Parents Johnnie And Frances In 1954, Princess Diana With Her Maternal Grandmother Baroness Fermoy In 1982. "When Work was 80," said Roberts, "he had a sick horse and spent all night in the stall with him.". Through her maternal ancestors, Lady Diana is also a distant cousin of the Marquis de Sade, distantly related to Hermann Goering. In 1953, aged 17, Frances became engaged to Johnnie Althorp, 12 years her senior and heir to the Spencer earldom. Written By Henry Mitchell For The Washington Post. Prince Charles and Princess Diana leave St. Mary's Hospital in London with Prince William on June 22, 1982. It was while Ruth was a student at the Paris Conservatoire of Music that she met Maurice. Princes Diana was also a fourth cousin, twice removed, of actress and comedian Miranda Hart. "The duchess of Windsor was very well connected indeed with big Maryland families, we have always thought. The Spencers have been farmers since pre-Tudor times, coming to prominence in Warwickshire in the fifteenth century. The Roches were exceedingly good-looking family, with two of the most beautiful ancestral homes in Ireland, Cahirguillamore and Kilshanning, but through high living and gambling, they had dissipated their fortune and would have been completely broke had the second Baron's heir not married Franklin Work's daughter in the late nineteenth century. Most of them are seventh to tenth cousins. Bits and pieces? "You can do worse than spend your honeymoon in the gentle green landscape of Ohio. Her maternal great-grandparents, James Boothby Burke Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy, and Frances Ellen Work, were also Oliver’s maternal great-great-grandparents. Diana Spencer herself is eligible through three different ancestors for the Daughters of the American Revolution. An American teacher has begun the legal process to exhume the body of one of Princess Diana's dead relatives in a bid to prove she's related to her. Sheep from their pastures were purchased for breeding and it is probable that the family’s success as farmers was rarely equalled in the century. He is a preeminent authority on the influence of Syrian and Armenian families in the German noble houses. Princess Diana’s paternal three times great … They are all Armenians. In 1995, a little less than a year before Charles and Diana's official divorce, the Princess of Wales confirmed the affair in a famous interview with BBC's Panorama. First Published In 1998, Althorp : Living History. Sources: The Four Presidents genealogy is from Ancestors of American Presidents, Roberts, 1995. John Spencer became feoffee [successor] of Wormleighton in 1469, and a tenant at Althorp in 1486. Her great-grandmother was Margaret Baring, a member of the German-British Baring family of bankers and the daughter of Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke. It doesn't' stop with Washington, … If you are indeed a cousin, I reckon the Windsors are like everybody else and are resigned to receiving you when you drop in. On August 31, 1997, Princess Diana died of injuries sustained in a car crash in Paris. Diana was born into the British Spencer family, different branches of which hold the titles of Duke of Marlborough, Earl Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, and Baron Churchill. In Virginia it is true that old families are all related. She remained closely involved with the Festival for twenty-five years, persuading Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother to become its patron. . All you have to do is go back yourself until you hit one of them and you have it made. Needless to say her American great-great grandparents have other descendants besides Lady Diana; indeed, it is probable they did not have the throne of England in mind at the time they started having babies, and would be somewhat surprised that a king of England in say, the year 2020 would be their descendant. Ah, Birth and breeding tell. The Spencers are direct descendants, albeit illegitimate, of the House of Stuart, with the family boasting at least five lines of direct descent from the Stuarts; and from them, the Spencers trace their ancestry to other royal houses such as the Bourbons [a European royal house of French origin who ruled France and Navarre in the sixteenth century], the Medicis [an Italian banking family and a political dynasty that ruled the Republic of Florence], the Wittelsbachs [members of the family reigned as dukes, electors and kings of Bavaria in Germany], the Hanovers [ruled the electorate and then the Kingdom of Hanover in Germany], the Sforzas [a ruling family of Renaissance Italy], the Habsburgs [also known as the house of Austria], and the houses of Howard and Boleyn through Mary Boleyn, Mistress of Henry VIII of England. We spoke briefly on the crosses one must bear -- one is hardly responsible for one'e forbears -- and Roberts mentioned that other American (Wallis Warfield of Maryland) associated with the British royal house. He thought a newspaper hack would rise to that bait. Diana, Princess of Wales, formerly Lady Diana Frances Spencer, was born on 1 July 1961 at Park House near Sandringham, Norfolk. She is a second cousin nine times removed of John Coke, a first cousin thirteen times removed of George Evelyn, a third cousin eight times removed of William Fairfax, a first cousin eleven times removed of William Berkeley, a sixth cousin ten times removed of Peter Montague, a fifth cousin nine times removed of Daniel Parke Custis. Fri, 30 Jun, 2017 - 01:00 Now many Americans find in their own families a great-aunt or a grand-mother or a great-uncle Will or some such person who is the family authority on gloire, and who can introduce into general conversation (at the proper time to startle people) the little tidbit that Charlemagne was a cousin on our mother's side and Caligula, oddly enough, on our father's. "I know people think genealogists are offbeat. "Tell me," I said, "how you answer the reproaches you say you keep getting, that you are spending your life on trivia matters of genealogy. Roberts asked. While Ruth could adopt the latter, there was no way she could invent the former. One became Earl of Sunderland, another the Duke of Marlborough when his uncle, only son and heir to the great John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, died. The California-based humanitarian organisation, Roots of Peace, was set up in memory of Princess Diana, who was an avid campaigner against landmines. "What are you laughing about?" Who can doubt I am closely related to Mr. Roberts the genealogist and who can doubt he will have me inside Buckingham Palace within the year? To be quite sure that one is related to persons of consequence it may in some cases be necessary to go back to Adam. Frances Ellen Work (October 27, 1857 – January 26, 1947) was an American heiress and socialite. William's late mother, Princess Diana, and great-grandmother, the Queen Mother, also were Washington's cousins. Lady Diana is one-fourth Scots, one-sixteenth Irish and Anglo-Irish, and one-eighth American. Both Roberts and Reitwiesner, I am happy to say, are in the family. First Published In 2005, Obituary Ruth Fermoy. She was a great-grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her great-great-grandchildren include Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and the American actor Oliver Platt. Here is … The humble origins of the Spencers as sheep farmers once caused a heated exchange of words between wealthy yet then upstart Lord Spencer and the Earl of Arundel, whose ancestors had been Earls of Arundel since the thirteenth century. There are people who move in, who have not always lived there, and they are not related. "Well," said Roberts, "you are only partly right. Probably the elevators work out there and you can probably get cream that actually whips and there is much to be said for it.". Years after Princess Diana’s crash and tragic death, Burrell grabbed headlines when he started to share information about her life during and after her marriage with Prince Charles.. Burrell went as far as admitting that he was the go-between man between Diana and her several lovers, often smuggling men into the palace in the backseat of his car with a coat over them. Also let me say that "cousin" is one of the most valuable words in the language since it covers relationships that may be extremely close genetically and also covers relationships so remote as to be astronomical. The latter divisive styling flourish has seen a resurgence this season owing to the popularity of Chanel’s pirate boots (yes, swashbuckling got stylish) and Wellington boots (the tall outdoorsy update to Bottega’s cult stompers). Reitwiesner, the one that likes to make trouble, appeared to be enjoying himself, but provided, after all, some quite respectable American connections for the princess: She is a second cousin 12 times removed of Lewis Burwell of Virginia, his researches have disclosed. The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986. "Perhaps we can postpone Jesse James," I ventured (for one of Reitwiesner's research papers is called "The Relationship of Lady Diana Spencer to Various Persons," and he underatandably kept tossing out names he thought would prove of interest. Kerry Lee Gaertner, 9, presents Princess Diana with a bouquet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, on Feb. 2, 1989 before the American debut of the Welsh National Opera performance of "Falstaff." The result was that the Churchill family are not really Churchills at all, but Spencers who added the surname Churchill to their own. Eliza's true race was expunged from the family tree and she reemerged as An Armenian. "And the duPonts," I reminded him, ignoring the Yale question for I do not disclose some of my sources, "are simply unarguably an important American family no matter what you think.". But we have standards, you know, and if we say the princess has American cousins, then by the grace of God we propose to document the assertion, and the Marquis de Sade can wait for another night. One of my own great-grandmothers was May Roberts, a well-known intellectual (according to my late grandmother) of the day who went to college which only strange intellectual women did then. In the late sixteenth century, Sir Robert Spencer represented Brackley in Parliament. "I'm a quarter American, a quarter Irish and half Scottish." And so they are, but the task here is to pin down the essential blood relationship by which Americans may be guided in their future dealings with the Windsors). "What a thing to say," I cried. His title, Earl Spencer, along with the title Viscount Althorp, of Althorp in the County of Northamptonshire was officially created in the Peerage of Great Britain on 1 November 1765. One of the richest women in England, she offered the cash-strapped King George II £100,000 [about $50 million today] for the hand of his son and heir Frederick, Prince of Wales, for her favorite granddaughter Diana Spencer. But Reitwiesner was off on another tangent: "Presidents Carter and Nixon are sixth cousins. According to the biography "The Real Diana," by Lady Colin Campbell, Kewark's background was known but kept quiet by a family that was full of Europeans descended from royalty. At one point Frank Work was in trouble and asked the commodore for financial advice, which he took and which was excellent. Roberts said the new princess of Wales has few southern connections in America, almost all Yankees. There is a beautiful daffodil named 'Fermoy,' by the way, and by the way the Burke Roches do not use a hypen in their double name. The Princess Diana and Winston Churchill genealogies are a "consensus" of genealogies seen on the web. "All American do.". "Actually, he is a great authority on continental European genealogy. And their daughter, Frances Ruth Burke Roche, married Edward John Spencer, the eighth Earl Spencer. But I certainly expect that once the princess of Wales' American connection becomes generally known we shall see half of this continent boarding Concordes and steamers and open rafts to sail to London -- to sail to the palace -- to have tea with the family. Maurice was the son of an American heiress named Frances [Fanny] Work [born in 1819 in Ohio] and the Honourable James Roche, later the third Baron Fermoy. The most interesting member of this family was Maurice Burke Roche, Lady Diana's grandfather who became the fourth Baron Fermoy in 1921. In most families, however, one need not go back so far to turn up persons of immense eminence (at least as far as Aunt Maude is concerned). This fiction was maintained even When Lady Diana married the Prince of Wales. So close did they become that the king leased Maurice Park House, a ten-bedroomed house on the Sandringham Estate. Back to Work, I always say, and certainly said many times with these two genealogists. Unfortunately for the Roches, he loathed foreigners and cut Fanny out of his will when she married one, reinstating her only after she left her husband in 1891 and returned home with her two young sons in tow. When he became the fourth Baron Fermoy, Maurice returned to live in England with the $3,000,000 which he had inherited from his indomitable but controlling grandfather. And their daughter is Lady Diana Spencer, so there you have it, from Chillicothe on. They took greater pride in being descended five times from King Charles II, even though four of those lines of descent were illegitimate including his illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy, and when the second Diana Spencer married Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1981, they were thrilled that it was through them the Stuart blood was being reintroduced into the royal line. I should point out before I begin my answer that to say “Princess Diana” is incorrect. . Ancestry Edit. Diana, Princess of Wales (née Diana Spencer) was born into a British noble family. There is not all that much Americans can do with Frank Work, fine man though he was, but once you start exploring his and his wife's relatives and going back a bit, you wind up with all those 17th century worthies. And Bill here is content with a (low status) job at the Library of Congress, just so he can be near the things he needs for his research. 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