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Royalty for Commoners
Royalty for Commoners. Roderick W. Stuart. (1995).

This is the new 4th Edition of Royalty for Commoners, substantially longer than the 3rd Edition, with vastly improved indexes and a host of essential new material. Royalty for Commoners is the first book ever to document the complete known genealogy of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III and Queen Philippa. The importance of this documentation is that any commoner who can connect his or her own family lineage to that of John of Gaunt can now be shown to share the same basic royal heritage as the most noble knight--the complete heritage, not just the Plantagenet ascent. This is the usual lineage through which a commoner can enter the domain of European royalty, though one might enter the lineage at any number of points.

Typically, the American descendant has several colonial ancestors, one or more of whom can be traced to European beginnings. Using over 2,000 published sources, as well as the spectacular resources of the Internet, Mr. Stuart here offers the researcher a multitude of possibilities, pointing the reader to numerous descents of which he may be completely unaware.

This new 4th Edition offers significant improvements over the previous edition by adding crucial new data and expanding its two indexes and cross-reference system. The changes included are as follows:

• More data has been added about various individuals. Personal data such as birth, death, and marriage information is now more complete and more accurate.
• The Title Index--which now includes all titles, not just the most important ones--has an additional 1,600 listings.
• The General Index has been expanded by more than 1,000 names with titles, some of which are alternate names for people already listed.
• The cross-reference system used in the book has been refined and expanded.
  
• Some lines that were previously deleted have been restored, some new lines have been added, and some existing lines have been extended further into antiquity.

Reviews of previous editions . . .

""""This book has been used extensively by researchers through reprints for ten years. Its refinement with each edition makes it a better reference, one that you will want to have on hand to further extend your English ancestry""""--CompuServe Genealogy Forum

""""Since a considerable number of American immigrants were descended from John of Gaunt, this volume will be of interest to a wide audience.""""--The Virginia Genealogist (July-Sept. 1992)

""""It is a great book if you have gotten this far back in time""""--FGS Forum (Winter 1998)

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