Customer Reviews

Notable Kin : An Anthology of Columns First Published in the NEHGS Nexus, 1986-1995

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There's something most of us find fascinating about the lineages of persons of note, whether they're royalty, U.S. presidents, movie stars, military leaders, or literary and historical figures like Pocahontas and Louisa May Alcott. The Virginia ancestry of the Queen Mother is relatively well known, as are the New England cousins of the late Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York -- but did you know Elvis Presley, Jimmy Carter, and Jesse Helms are all collaterally related? Roberts is probably the leading expert at this sort of thing, especially when it comes to uncovering surprising connections, like the British royal descent of Karl Marx's wife (whose grandmother was Scottish), and he carefully lays out examples of what might be called "genealogical evolution," demonstating that genealogy really is inclusive, not exclusive. Many British, European, and American contemporaries are much more closely related than we often realize. There are also a number of descents contributed by guest columnists which maintain the same high standard of documentation.