Hodgson Ancestors of King Charles III

A Great-Great-Great-Grandmother of King Charles III of the United Kingdom was a Hodgson

Among the King's ancestors are the following*:

Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandparents

Reverend Robert Hodgson (1739-1808) of Congleton, Cheshire = Mildred Porteus** (1743-1815).

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Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandparents

Reverend Robert Hodgson (1773-1844) = Mary Tucker (born 1775)

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Great-Great-Great-Grandparents

Henrietta Mildred Hodgson (1805-1891) = Oswald Smith (1794-1863)

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Great-Great-Grandparents

Frances Dora Smith (1832-1922) =(m.1853)= Claude Lyon-Bowes (later Bowes-Lyon) (1824-1904), 13th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghome (1824-1904)

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Great-Grandparents

Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghome (1855-1944) =(m.1881)= Cecilia Nina Cavendish-Bentinek (1862-1938)

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Grandparents

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900-2002) =(m.1923)= Duke of York, later King George VI (1895-1952)

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Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) =(m.1947)=Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark who became Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on marriage (1921-2021)

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King Charles III, born 1948

His Majesty is, thus, a member of the Hodgson Clan.

How Likely is This?

The reader may ask how likely is it that someone from the UK has a Hodgson as a great-great-grandparent. In 1881 Hodgsons were numbered 693 per million in the UK (Source: British Surnames). There are 16 great-great-grandparents so the probability of having one or more Hodgsons as a great-great-grandparent is:


1 - (1 - 0.000693)^16 = 0.0122 = 1.1%.


In other words, this formula estimates that about one in a hundred people from the UK have a Hodgson as a great-great-grandparent.


1.1% is certainly an overestimate, because Hodgsons are very unevenly distributed over the UK, and by the time that we get back to our great-great-grandparents, most UK citizens have an ancestor from outside the UK, where Hodgsons are even more rare.


By the same formula, the likelihood of someone in the USA having a Hodgson as a great-great-grandparent is 0.059%, or about one in 1700.

*  We are grateful to Edward Hodgson of Australia for reminding us of this link


** Mildred Porteus and George Washington (the First President of the United States of America) were second cousins. Her father, Robert Porteus (1679-1758) migrated from Virginia to York, and afterwards to Ripon, in England. The common ancestors of Mildred Porteus and George Washington were their Virginia great-grandparents, Augustine Warner II and Mildred Reade.

 

Sources:


The West Australian, Saturday Review, 11 June 1977,

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry_of_Elizabeth_II_of_the_United_Kingdom accessed 17 April 2009.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dmrusher/famous_queen_elizabeth.htm accessed 17 April 2009 - this link is no longer valid and we are seeking an up-to-date link.

http://www.bigballoonmusic.com/goddardreagan/TheQueensAmericanAncestors.htm accessed 17 April 2009 - this link is no longer valid and we are seeking an up-to-date link.