Does the French Royal Family Still Exist?

+21 votes
1.2k views

Interesting question see a good article “Does the French Royal Family Still Exist? A Look Inside the Monarchy

See The Last King of France on Wikipedia 

Will the Royal line ever be reinstated? If so who would be heir to the throne of France? 

Maybe your lineage can be traced to the French monarchy

Note: interestingly the Last King of France was my very very distant cousin but apparently not thru my paternal French origins but maternal English origins how odd

WikiTree profile: Louis XVI de France
in The Tree House by Andrew Simpier G2G6 Pilot (686k points)
retagged by Andrew Simpier

A little bit of a side issue …

There are a number of “pretenders” to the various thrones of Europe. Wikipedia has an interesting summary. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretender

And, if you really want to get out in left field, then there is Bloodline of the Holy Grail, perhaps the ultimate conspiracy theory.

Is that the Merovingian one?  It's a bit silly to make it Frankish because the Grail story is associated with the Romano-Britons.

What's more, there is precise genetic evidence for what happened to the Romano-British leadership.  For example, look under https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Randolph%20DNA%20Surname%20Project?iframe=ycolorized for Dennis and Edward Fitz Randolph and Joseph Randall.

Their Y-DNA pedigree derives from ancient Latium and is:

R-P312/S116 > Z40481 > ZZ11 > U152/S28 > Z56 > BY3548 > Z43/S366 > Z144 > BY28794 > PF6582 > PF6577 > FGC36902/BY3953 > FGC36897 > FGC36895 > A8380 > FGC41936

It is consistent with the Sabine origin attributed to the Aurelii by the Roman historian Festus.  The Sabine second traditional king of Rome, Numa, is interesting because in legend he introduced much of Roman religion, including the worship of Jupiter and Mars, and the position of Pontifex. The administration of the Roman Church is called the Curia and shares its etymology with the name of the Sabine capital, Cures.

The Aurelii were the priests of the Sun.  The Aurelii Cottae were an Equestrian family who served Rome both as Tribunes and as Consuls.

Aurelia Cotta was Caesar's mother and Augustus's ancestor.

Archaeologically, we know of Aurelia Aureliana who lived in Carlisle in the early 3rd century AD, around the time Biblical scenes were being painted in the Hypogeum of the Aurelii in Rome (a catacombs-like burial space for this gens).

Aurelia Aureliana's widower was Ulpius Apolinaris.  Two centuries later, the Bishop and Senator Sidonius Apollinaris was a friend of the British leader with the title Riothamus, who has been identified with Ambrosius Aurelianus.

Aurelius Ambrosius is also the name of St Ambrose, who advise the usurper Magnus Maximus not to execute Priscillian.  (Note:  Aurelii weren't particular about name order, as the inscriptions in the Hypogeum show.)

The reputed descendants of the Aurelii were the House of Vannes/Rennes, dukes of Brittany.  They founded Parliament and advised William the Conqueror to ameliorate his cruelties to the English. Their descendants were counsellors to English (e.g. the FitzHugh family) and to French monarchs for centuries (e.g. Cardinal Richelieu claimed a descent from them).

The FitzRandolphs and Randalls claim to be male-line descendants of those dukes, and many US Presidents have FitzRandolphs as recent ancestors.

Plenty of real-life substance to chew on there, without bringing Clovis into it.
Geoffrey if you know of any proven line back to the ancient Romans please give a citation to any publication that has proven it. It is a pretty well-known challenge, and something even serious scholars get into, and as far as I know there are none.

Just to take one step in this collection of assertions, as far as real historians are concerned nothing at all is known about Riothamus's family, I'm afraid. People can associate him with all types of families, but these are just fantasies.
I've read somewhere that R-U152 can be divided into Celtic/Gaulish (R-L2, R-Z36) and Italic/Roman (R-Z56, R-Z192). I'm not sure of the source, but it would seem to support Geoffrey Tobin's position. Maybe somebody else does have a source.
@Frank, no one denies that all Europeans are biologically/genetically related, and the types of very old haplogroups you name don't help us go much beyond that. Genealogy is about seeing if we can confirm individual lines of descent. With technology as it is today, genetic testing can only very rarely help prove an exact individual line back more than a few hundred years. (For example in the case of Richard III's mitochondrial DNA.) I would think that if someone uses it to connect a modern person to a Roman it will be very big news indeed.
Interesting the pretenders and conspiracy theory aspect ! It’s very educational

Thank you
No unbroken chain of birth certificates, so I’m afraid we are limited to following a trail of crumbs.

However, think on this: we have a sample of ancient Y-DNA from east of Rome, dated between 600 BC and 200 BC, which has similarities to the FitzRandolph pedigree.

According to ancient Roman historians such as Festus, the Aurelii originated as priests of the Sun in the Sabine Hills north-east of Rome and migrated to Rome following the Roman-Sabine war of the 700s BC.

What are the odds of both the FitzRandolphs fabricating a Breton ducal heritage, and the House of Rennes confabulating an ancient Roman Republican-era ancestry, and both getting it right, without being derailed in any generation by false paternity, by luck?

Geoffrey there is not much luck involved because the only thing linking all the extremely diverse links in this chain is  21st century genealogical speculation. The chances of modern genealogists not coming up with fantastic stories to connect any bit of old Italian DNA with English families is almost zero. :)

Andrew, I think you misunderstand the logic of this.  If a modern genealogist were sifting masses of modern DNA to find some that was of central Italian origin, and then fabricated an ancestry story for it, then I would agree with you.

But this is the opposite situation: a prominent Breton family documented as residing in the north-west extremity of Europe since at least AD 850 has been claiming ancient Roman descent for a thousand years.

Their immediate neighbours in their community all that time were mostly Britons, Gauls, Saxons and Franks, with the DNA you'd expect from that.  So if they were lying or fantasising, we would expect to find they shared the same Y-DNA as the people they mixed with every day all that time.

Moreover, false paternity occurs with increasing effect over time.  We see this with the Plantagenets: Richard III's Y-DNA has the G haplogroup whereas modern claimants to Plantagenet descent have R1b.

When the Dukes and the FitzRandolphs made their claims, no-one knew about Y-DNA.  (U152 was only discovered in the 21st century.)
Geoffrey I think you'd need to write your argument up at length somewhere else. But both the original old claims (as opposed to modern reinterpretations of them), and the DNA evidence, do not really seem specific or unusual enough to be called surprising coincidences. Your own original wording was "consistent with". The data you are connecting is very fuzzy, and consistent with an incalculable number of scenarios.
One can of course multiply fictional scenarios, Arthurian-Romance style, but not all scenarios are equally lean and powerful as hypotheses.  I'd like them to be subjected to Bayesian analysis.

Which of the data is "fuzzy"?

What can be sure of?  We can be confident from the genetic evidence that the stated FitzRandolph/Randoll Y-DNA derives from Latium in the first millennium BC.  Of course way back then their ancestors could be an obscure family of struggling peasants, as most people were.  

As ancient DNA samples are accumulated, we may be able to narrow down the possibilities.  Ideally, we'd like the Y-DNA of prominent Roman families: it is a pity that many leading figures were cremated.

7 Answers

+13 votes
 
Best answer

Will the Royal line ever be reinstated?

Did you look into the history and constitution of France? My guess: I would go for buying lottery tickets, chance of winning there is enormously larger...

by Michel Vorenhout G2G6 Pilot (317k points)
selected by Valorie Zimmerman

I would agree as it currently stands however looking at French history they have a thing for Revolutions laugh

+18 votes
The Youtube channel Useful Charts made an interesting video about this, that presents a few "heirs" explaining their genealogy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_wt-9d2w7U
by Léa Haupaix G2G6 Mach 9 (96.7k points)

Thank you yes 

What would it of been if the French didn’t have a Revolution and execute their King and Queen in the year 1793. History is interesting 

Edited: History of France on Wikipedia 

I love Useful Charts. It is just so fascinating.
Eva, thanks for this link!
My Anjou ancestry become3s zzzzzzzfaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaFaaulk 1 crusader king of Jerusalem. KIng EDward I and James II have SPanish connections that lead to the Arab KIngdom of Andalusia. and 2 Khalifas Omar and still continues in the UK ROyal Family and anyone who they married in Germany  (se Geni.com)
+15 votes

My evil plot to rule the entire world continues! I am related to many listed on the The Ancestry of Europe's Royal and Princely Houses: Work in Progress page and descended from several as well! (Insert evil laugh here) laugh

by Ken Parman G2G6 Pilot (121k points)

bwahahahahaha!

Exactly!!!
Love the "evil laugh"!  

No reason you can't have a little fun with history laugh

Well, so much for getting any sleep tonight.
<MUST READ WIKIPAGE>

+6 votes
Our lineage can be traced to Louis, but it’s thru my 13th g/grandfather, from Scotland, James Hamilton, 1st Lord Hamilton. Louis is my 11th cousin 3 times removed. Quite a distance. Interesting, the connection finder (of names) doesn’t marry with the relationship finder.
by Megan Woodward G2G6 Mach 4 (41.9k points)
I'm also attached to Louis through a Scottish line with Hamilton in it! That line seems to attach to much of European Royalty if you trace it far enough. Although I can't see your tree, I'm wondering if that makes us distant cousins as well. :)
We could possibly be cousins, depending on your Hamilton line.
If you can connect with a Stewart, that’s good already, because they seem to be descended from just about everyone in medieval and early modern history.
They do don’t they, but interesting.
+3 votes
I am connected to Louis as a distant cousin through James IV of Scotland, my 14th great grandfather. Louis is my 9th cousin, 6x removed.
by Shonda Feather G2G6 Pilot (415k points)

That’s closer than most I’ve seen yes wow!

+4 votes
Borbon in SPain and Greece. I have a friend who has Bourbon ancestry.
by Anonymous Whiting G2G6 (9.6k points)
I became an AhmadiyyaMuslim in 11974 mainly because my grandfather a Hindustaaaanin interpreter was approached. A man claimed to be the Promised Messiah. That is why I have lots of Arab and prominent Jewish ancestors. even a Chinese Emperor  Wu Song and Indian Emporer Ashoka. IT is miraculous.
I have just sdded Alfred the GRest snf William of Normandy.

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