Not only is President Trump hosting King Charles III on a state visit to the United States but he is also related to his royal guest, according to an analysis commissioned by a British newspaper.
“Wow, that’s nice. I’ve always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace!!!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday, citing the research published by The Daily Mail, a British tabloid. “I’ll talk to the King and Queen about this in a few minutes!!!”
The president didn’t say whether he talked with the royal couple about it during their visit, but he called the king “a fantastic person” and said it was a real honor to host them.
Mr. Trump’s claim to royal blood lies in a common ancestor, the third Earl of Lennox, who was a great-grandson of King James II of Scotland. That makes Mr. Trump — long an admirer of the British monarchy, and whose mother was Scottish — a 15th cousin of King Charles, according to the Daily Mail.
The Daily Mail said that Robert Barrett, a former research editor at the paper and a genealogist, had “studied multiple land records, church records and Scottish peerage documents to piece together” Mr. Trump’s lineal connection to the House of Windsor.
Surprising though it may sound, the suggestion is plausible. In fact, experts say, millions of Britons may be able to make similar claims to a royal bloodline.
Adam Rutherford, an author and geneticist, argued in his book “A Brief History of Everyone That Ever Lived” that almost everyone with British heritage was related one way or another to royalty. “There is a virtually impossible chance that if you were born in the 1970s then you are not directly descended from Edward III,” Mr. Rutherford wrote in a 2017 article, citing detailed mathematical calculations that he had carried out with two colleagues at University College London.
Graham Holton, a genealogist at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, said he was skeptical that royal connections were truly so universal, and, though he described the Daily Mail’s finding as possible, said he could not verify it.
But he acknowledged that “many of the present-day residents of the U.K. and the diaspora all over the world will be descended from medieval kings and queens.” He added, “You could be talking about millions.”
Over the centuries many royal descendants will have reproduced with those of lower social status, spreading their genes.
And if you go back more than 20 generations or so, based on the average reproduction rate, everyone will have millions of ancestors.
The actor Benedict Cumberbatch is said to be a second cousin, 16 times removed of Richard III. The popular BBC genealogy show “Who Do You Think You Are?” discovered that a British comedian, Josh Widdicombe, was a descendant of Edward I, who died more than 700 years ago, as was a well-known rower, Matthew Pinsent.
The same show traced the roots of the actor Danny Dyer to Edward III, and found out that Alexander Armstrong, an actor and broadcaster, was descended from William the Conqueror.
Mr. Trump is far from the first president of royal descent.
In 1988, genealogists declared George H.W. Bush a 13th cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and traced his family tree back to the 1400s. American presidents have been at least six times more likely to have royal blood than the people who elected them, it was reported at the time.
And the Daily Mail has reported that, through his British lineage, Mr. Trump was distantly related to Hillary Clinton, both being descendants of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III.
Stephen Castle is a London correspondent of The Times, writing widely about Britain, its politics and the country’s relationship with Europe.
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