Concepts

Introduction

Click on an item in the list below for further information about various aspects of the database.

• Historical Sources
• Given & Family Names
• Index Names
• Titles
• Cause of Death
• Royal Blood
• Portraits

Historical Sources

This web site is intended as a general reference for those interested in royal genealogy, rather than as a specialist tool, and the vast majority of the information provided has therefore been drawn from secondary sources, such as royal biographies, rather than from original research. Often, different sources disagree on a given subject, and in these instances we have tried to use whichever one appears to be most authoritative and reliable, although where this is difficult to judge we have simply chosen whichever interpretation seemed most likely.

Given & Family Names

Given names have generally been anglicised, except where the individual is more commonly known by the native form. For example, "John" is preferred to "Jean" or "Juan", but "Louis" is preferred to "Lewis". One of the main reasons for this is to provide consistency for name statistics. Two notable exceptions are: non-English forms given to English-speaking people (for example Maria Fitzherbert); and those given names generally held to be female but given to males named after saints (such as Maria).

Many people in the database did not have what would now be thought of as a "surname" or "last name", so the term "family name" is used as a more general alternative, to indicate a name that is usually associated with a particular family (for example, Plantagenet or Guelph) .

Index Names

The "index name" of an individual is the name by which he or she appears in most lists or reports in the web site. Most index names follow one of the following two formats:

• <given name> <family name>, <title>
  for example : Edmund Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset
• <given name> <family name> (<relation> of <other person>)
  for example : Elizabeth de Burgh (daughter of Richard, 2nd Earl of Ulster)

The first format is used mainly for those who have a title in their own right. Thus spouses who obtain a title through marriage are generally not listed with that title, although there are some exceptions to this rule (especially in the case of men who gained a heritable title by marrying an heiress).

There are many cases where an individual could, with ample justification, have been given any one of several index names. For example, "Margaret Tudor (daughter of King Henry VII)" could also have been listed as "Margaret Tudor (sister of King Henry VIII)", "Margaret Tudor (wife of James IV of Scotland)" or "Margaret Tudor (mother of James V of Scotland)". In such cases, we have not followed any particular rules, but have simply selected whichever seemed the most appropriate form.

A third format is used exclusively for sovereigns of England since 1066 - these index names start with "King" or "Queen", for example "King Henry VIII" or "Queen Elizabeth I".

The main point to be aware of is that choosing a suitable format for an index name is a very subjective matter, and you should therefore be prepared to try several alternatives when looking for a specific individual.

Titles

Titles within the United Kingdom peerage are generally listed in the format: <title> (<year> xx - <number>)

The year indicates when the title was obtained by the first person in this particular line.
The "xx" indicates how the title was obtained: "cr" means it was created for this person, "m" means it was obtained via marriage to the heiress.
The "number" indicates the person's sequence number within the series.

For example, Baron Beaumont (1309 cr - 2nd): this means the person is the 2nd holder of this title, which was created for his predecessor in 1309.
Another example, Earl of Derby (1362 m - 2nd): this means the person is the 2nd holder of this title, which was obtained via his predecessor's wife in 1362.

Cause of Death

For ease of analysis, all deaths recorded in the database are attributed to one of the following six causes: Accident, Battle, Execution, Murder, Natural, Unknown. Although these are fairly self-explanatory, there are several points which should be noted:

• The 'Battle' category includes those who were killed as a direct result of a military action, except in the few well-known cases where the victim is generally considered to have been executed (for example, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, who was 'executed' after the battle of Wakefield).
• Suicides are included in the 'Natural' category.
• The 'Execution' category generally includes those who were the victims of summary justice, as well as those who were condemned by more formal legal methods.

Royal Blood

The 'Royal Blood' value displayed on each person's biography page represents the proportion of English/Scottish royal blood inherited by that person.

Each legitimate child of a monarch of England/Scotland (or Great Britain) is assigned a value of 100%. Other people are assigned the average of their parents' values. Illegitimate children of monarchs are assigned a value of 50% plus half the non-royal parent's value.

Note that some monarchs therefore appear more royal than others: for example Henry VIII has a value of 100%, because he was the son of a king, but his father Henry VII has a much lower value.

Portraits

Portraits are being located for some of the more famous people in the database. If one is available, the symbol shown will appear as a clickable link at the top of the person's Biography page.