Is Kate Middleton related to Jane Austen?

What an interesting discovery. It appears that our very own Duchess of Cambridge is related to iconic British author, Jane Austen.

According to Ancestry.com the two ladies are distant cousins through Henry Percy – the second earl of Northumberland, born in 1392. What’s more, Henry Percy was the second great-grandson of King Edward lll, making King Edward a distant great-grandfather to the Middleton sisters.

The website’s research indicates that the Middleton/Austen family connection also makes them 11th cousins, six times removed.

But perhaps the most interesting fact about this link is that Kate is actually living the life of a typical Jane Austen heroine – a middle class girl marrying the future King of England. How ironic.

And that’s not the only thing the pair have in common. Rumour has it many of Austen’s relatives were in love with men of high social rank – and clearly Kate is no exception.

This discovery was made on the 200th year anniversary of Jane Austen’s first novel, Sense and Sensibility – which actually has a character in it named Lady Middleton.

Kate certainly seems to be developing an incredibly interesting family tree. Shortly before marrying Prince William in April this year, it was revealed that TV host Ellen DeGeneres had received a letter from the New England Genealogy Society claiming that Kate is her fifteenth cousin. The society has even published a book with details of the Duchess’ British and American relatives. It dates right back to Sir Thomas Fairfax who died in 1521 – a very distant shared relative of Prince William himself.

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