I’ve a line to Katherine Swynford nee DeRoet who married John of Gaunt and to every English monarch since. That, and Two-Fifty, will get me a cup of coffee anywhere.
Not Starbucks....
We're related. Also Feinnes, and the "ancestral pile" is Hurstmonceux Castle, now the British Naval Observatory. I'm also related to John Howland, who fell overboard from the Mayflower, but, fortunately for me, was rescued.
I am descended from the Plantagenets as well; but while all of this *genealogy* was being drilled into me when I was growing up, I kept thinking that all those records were only as true as the women were honest ;-)
It seemed weird to me that people put so much store by it, even though I realized at the same time that being raised with a certain sense of one’s background, and the traditions that came with it passed down through generations, were valuable.
In the end, it can get you into the “Hereditary Register”, which is worth about....a cup of coffee :-)
-JT