Was Katherine Blount a descendant of Alfred the Great?

Question

Katherine Blount married Humphrey Lee in the 1560s. I've seen many sites and pages making her a descendant of Alfred the Great. Can anyone confirm this? They were the grand or great-grandparents of Col Lee, the first Lee to United States.

Answer 1

Thanks for the question - It's possible that Katherine Blount is a descendant of Alfred the Great, many of the gentry/nobility in England, did have some links back to royal families (though there are also some links back that far that have proved to be false).

However unfortunately there appear to be probably 3 profiles on Wikitree for Katherine (Blount-1104, Blount-557 and Blount-207)  One of them is connected to John Blount (Blount-77) which if this is the correct Katharine Blount is impossible because he would have died before she was born, and another to John Blount (Blount-212) and his wife Elizabeth Yeo.

At the moment there doesn't appear to be enough research to say she was definitely the daughter of this John and Elizabeth or to go any further back in her genealogy.

Comments

I've proposed merges for the 3 profiles for Kathrine, and replaced the incorrect John Blount.

The Visitation of Shropshire shows that John Blount senior (Blount-77) did not have a daughter Katherine.  Actually a number of the children on his current profile seem to be attached incorrectly, but that's a problem for another day.

Answer 2

I wouldn't trust the Lee of Nordley line as far as I could throw it.  It comes from one of those books.

The Blounts claim descent from the Conqueror's admiral.  They aren't the only ones - William must have had a bunch of admirals.

The Alfred claim is going to be about the ancestors of the alleged admiral.  But it's probably true by accident, because valid Alfred lines were easy enough to marry.

The main Anglo-Saxon royal bloodline was taken to Scotland by St Margaret and then back to the English northern gentry by William the Lion's illegitimate daughter Isabel.

There's also a back-door route to Alfred through the Counts of Flanders.  This is inherited by Henry I's numerous illegitimate kids and a bunch of other early Anglo-Norman barons.

WikiTree shows many more lines through Alfred's grandson Adalulf

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Boulogne-9

but MedLands doesn't join up the Counts of Boulogne.