Ancestry.com Discovers 'Princess Kate' and Jane Austen Are Related
June 28 2011 - 7:29AM
Marketwired
As the royal newlyweds embark on their first official tour of North
America, arriving in the United States on July 8, Ancestry.com
(NASDAQ: ACOM), the world's largest online family history resource,
today announced that the former Catherine Middleton and Jane
Austen, one of the best known and most popular novelists in the
English-speaking world, are related.
Catherine, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, and
Austen, best known for her novels focusing on lower gentry or
middle class women and their romantic interactions with men of
higher rank and wealth, are related through their common ancestor
Henry Percy, the 2nd Earl of Northumberland. Percy, who lived in
the first half of the 15th century, is Kate's 16th
great-grandfather and Jane Austen's 10th great-grandfather, making
them 11th cousins, six times removed.
Though her work touched on many topics, from economics to
equality, Jane Austen is largely considered to be the pioneer of
the romantic fiction genre. Her novels are known for their biting
social commentary and romance between the classes and her heroines
for their spirit, intelligence and wit; they are readers and
walkers; they are loyal friends and sisters.
It has been exactly 200 years since Jane Austen published her
first novel, Sense and Sensibility (1811). Written with both comedy
and emotional depth, Sense and Sensibility is considered to be one
of the greatest romantic dramas ever written, demonstrating why
Jane Austen remains one of our most popular authors almost 200
years after her death. The 1995 film version of the novel earned
Emma Thompson, who authored the screenplay and starred in the film,
an Academy Award.
"Finding this connection between the Duchess of Cambridge and
Jane Austen is very exciting since, in many ways, Catherine is the
modern Jane Austen heroine: a middle class girl marrying the future
King of England," said Anastasia Harman, Lead Family Historian for
Ancestry.com. "Jane Austen may have written about
happily-ever-after but it seems Catherine has found a nonfiction
hero to spend her life with -- far past the epilogue."
Sisters and Friends
Throughout her life, Jane Austen's best friend and strongest
supporter was her elder sister Cassandra. In fact, when Cassandra
was sent off to boarding school at age 10 in 1783, eight-year-old
Jane refused to be separated from her sister, demanding to go
also.
The close relationship between the Austen sisters is easily
comparable to the bond Catherine shares with her younger sister
Pippa, who served as Catherine's maid of honor at her recent
wedding, attended the same boarding school as her older sister and
then followed her to Scotland to college.
While all her novels conclude with a happy marriage between the
heroine and her hero, neither Jane nor Cassandra ever married.
There is however every expectation that Pippa will follow her
sister's example and marry her own prince charming.
Fame and Fortune
As the Royal Couple's visit will demonstrate, the celebrity and
fame surrounding Catherine has only increased since her
wedding.
Born in 1775, Jane Austen is perhaps best known for her works
Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, two of six novels
she wrote in addition to lesser known short stories and unfinished
works. Her writing brought Austen little fame or fortune during her
lifetime -- today a cult of "Jane-ites" has emerged around the
world. Numerous sequels to her works have been penned, various film
adaptations of her novels produced, and a new generation of female
readers, often speculating on their romantic endeavors, asks
themselves "What would Jane do?"
Royal Connections
Henry Percy, the ancestor who connects Catherine and Jane, was
born in 1392 at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. Percy
was a 2nd great-grandson of King Edward III -- meaning that King
Edward is also a distant great-grandfather of Catherine
Middleton.
Spending his youth in Scotland, because his father and
grandfather were killed fighting against King Henry IV of England,
in his early twenties, Percy reconciled with King Henry V (after
Henry IV's death) and was tasked with protecting the Scottish
border. He was killed in 1455 during the first battle of the Wars
of the Roses, at St. Albans, England. The Wars of the Roses were a
series of English civil wars fought over the English throne.
About Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com)
Ancestry.com Inc. (NASDAQ: ACOM) is the world's largest online
family history resource, with more than 1.6 million paying
subscribers. More than 6 billion records have been added to the
site in the past 14 years. Ancestry users have created more than 24
million family trees containing over 2.4 billion profiles.
Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries that
help people discover, preserve and share their family history,
including its flagship Web site at www.ancestry.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that
involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to
differ materially from those anticipated by these forward-looking
statements. Such risks and uncertainties include our ability to
acquire, digitize and make desired content conveniently available
to our subscribers. Information concerning additional factors that
could cause events or results to differ materially from those
projected in the forward-looking statements is contained under the
caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2010, and in discussions in other of our
SEC filings. These forward-looking statements should not be relied
upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date and we
assume no obligation to publicly update or revise these
forward-looking statements.
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For more information: Sean Pate Ancestry.com 415-744-1756
spate@ancestry.com Susan Roth For Ancestry.com 301-530-3539
prsue@rothpr.com
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