So you think you are Royal?

[Andrew C.]

...or whatever it is called. Did anyone see this at the weekend. I never caught the last bit about the DNA results I know they where saying the Wilcox family where not a match to the other two claiming to be descended form George III but did the the other two tested have the same Y chromosone? I have never saw this programme before thought it was alright.

[LesleyB]

Hi Andrew
What channel was it shown on?

Best wishes
Lesley

[Chris Paton]

It's on Sky One, though I had to give up on the series a few weeks back. It had a hilarious opening line each week, "it's possible that up to half of the British possible are descended from royalty". It's possible that we all are, but it doesn't necessarily make it true though! lol

I watched three episodes in a row, and not one of them found a royal connection, and in one of them, Nick Barrat really made a mockery of genealogy with one of his conclusions. A group of women had an ancestor who it was claimed was descended from some royal or other 200 years ago, the ancestor allegedly being a lovechild of the royal in question, raised by an adoptive couple in London. Not a single shred of evidence was found to support the claim, except the fact that the ancestor's adoptive father once served as a private in the royal's regiment. Looking at a muster roll, Nick B then goes, "so I can say that it is almost certain that your ancestor was indeed the lovechild of his majesty".... Errr, come again?????! My own levels of required proof tend to go much further....!

What I would say, to give it some credit, is that it is quite watchable, even if it is complete hokum, and is probably the first series in a long while that doesn't feel like a clone of WDYTYA. But I really wish TV companies would stop looking for gimmicks with genealogy series, and get back to the real bread and butter of the field again.

Chris

Former disgruntled BBC producer on a rant...! lol

[LesleyB]

Hi Chris

It's on Sky One

Ah, thanks. Don't have Sky.... so won't be able to check it out. Besides, I spend so much time on the PC that I don't tend to be able fit in any TV viewing! (and if I'm not on the PC, I'm reading.... )

Best wishes
Lesley

[Andrew C.]

I had given it a body swerve as I thought oh no not another genealogy programme making out we all have famous or royal ancestors. I am just as pleased when I discover my ancesters where miners, whalers, in service, farm labourers and all the usual down to earth occupations, and programmes on Sky tend to be naff anyway. There was nothing on the other night and i was flicking through the channels so I missed the start. The family in question didn't seem to have much of a claim to be descended from George III other than family hearsay. I thought it was watchable though and they laid there hands on a lot of documentary evidence sorrounding the period in question. And they did uncover that George III seemed to have married a Quaker women prior to marrying Queen Charlotte and had two children by her. They were saying that the marriage to Queen Charlotte was bigamous and technically the eldest son from the first marriage was the rightful Royal line. They traced two ancestors of the children from the first marriage, one of the children was called George Rex (coincidence or what?) however all I caught was that this Wilcox families Y chromosone didn't match the other two, however it didn't make it clear if the other two matched each other and didn't dwell on whether their claim had substance, or at least I didn't catch what they said as my wife was on the phone talking over it! So i was wondering if anyone else picked it up.

[Rockford]

Hi Andrew,

I saw it when it was repeated at the weekend. If I remember correctly, the end result was that none of the three people DNA tested shared a common ancestor, but this did not rule out that any single one of them might have been related/descended from George III.

At least there were no huge leaps of faith this time!!

Brian