I don't know why the meridians were changed but I'm going to research it.
As to how royalty hid out in America before Columbus- yes, very likely. After Columbus too. Whenever anyone posts about how all the presidents are descended from English royalty and have other common ancestors, I always tell them most of the early English settlers were either nobility or had royal blood. I found this out while doing a family genealogy. Some stayed in populated areas on the East coast and later in cities where they educated their children and got rich and are considered the bluebloods of America.
The rest wanted land, because that's what was important back then. So they migrated in family and church groups across the country and the families intermarried. Eventually a lot of them became illiterate because there was no need for farmers to read and write and no schools. So, ironically, these people with royal blood became the rednecks of America. Families tended to intermarry with neighboring families who owned the land around them. There are many of these old families in rural MO. Eventually, with all the difficulties of eking out a living by farming or trading with Indians (who they sometimes married), and with some of them living in poverty, they lost the knowledge of their royal and noble lineage. It really didn't matter and they had their own family secrets to hide so people back then didn't discuss their families much. Record keeping was really awful too.
Around the 1900s these farmers. loggers and lead miners started moving into the small towns in MO, got educated and then future generations started to move away. Some who stayed are today the meth makers of MO, the meth capital of the country. Some of them could probably trace their family back to nobility in the Tudor court. Then there are the French aristocrats who settled in Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis who I don't know about. Some families probably do have knowledge of who they were/are.
Quoting: Anonymous Coward 1145382 That is some really interesting stuff , it's almost unbelibable to fathom! I would believe it though. Man, could you imagine if some meth cook living in the Ozarks was actually a prince or king or even a direct descendant of one? What a movie script that would make! I've met more than a few pretty big time meth cooks and a lot of those guys are extremley intilgent.
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Heh, they probably wouldn't believe it themselves! I wonder if it would change their outlook on life.
I read this statistic that 80% of Americans with western European roots can trace their ancestry back to some royalty. Sounds a bit high, but that's what it said. When you think about how small a country like England is, and how the population was much smaller in the past then it makes sense. Family descendants grow exponentially. Early immigrant farmers had like a dozen kids who all had a dozen kids. Plus, IMHO, the people who first came to America had to have some funds to get here. They weren't serfs or really poor people. Not like later when the poor came through Ellis Island. But that is just my opinion. Maybe they were the poor relations in a noble family but it seems like most came for religious freedom.
There was a segment on 60 Minutes about a year ago about a black woman who was doing her family genealogy and found out she was cousins with a white man from Poplar Bluff MO. His family had been slave owners (they owned a plantation on the East coast) and it turned out they were actually related because her ancestors were slaves but she had some white blood. There may have been some DNA testing,I don't remember. Anyways, they said the Poplar Bluff farmer was descended from royalty. I really wasn't surprised by that after having done some research on my own family and hearing friends say they were descended from Anne Boleyn or Cromwell, etc.
I have a family chart on my mother's English side of the family that goes back to barons in England who had some royal blood connection. The name is very English and can be traced back to a Norman ancestor who came to England with William the Conqueror. He was a Baron. The American ancestors came over in 1638 and most of the people with that name in the U.S. are their descendants. They had become Puritans and I guess that's why they came here. I really consider anyone with that name part of the tribe because we are most all related at some point.
Now that's not true of all last names because sometimes their origins are from all over the world, but in this case I think it's true since it's a name of only English origin. My mother's family were just common folks but that was their origin. Back in the 1500s my grandfathers male ancestors had intermarried with a lot of the other families that were nobility in the Tudor court. This info which I found online has all been documented, it's not bull.
Oh and this was totally weird- It turned out my husband's cousin was from a branch of the same family. I kept seeing his last name when I was doing research and when he found out I was doing genealogy he told me his relative had done their family tree and that his family is related to mine way way back, which turned out to be true. They had their own castle and everything. Really strange because his ancestors were all Protestants so I didn't think it was his family when I ran across his name because they are Catholic. His uncle is a priest who told me, yeah, I'm descended from a long line of Baptist ministers, but then a relative a few generations ago converted and he ended up being a priest. So you never know what you will find out about your family tree.
If you ever want to research your family name just google it plus add genealogy behind the name. Or go to Rootsweb which is a free website. Or Ancestry.com which charges. There are lots of places online to trace your ancestors. You not only can find your roots but you learn little known history and the way people lived.
