celebrity

Someone just figured out Princess Eugenie and her new fiancé are kinda, sorta related.

To catch up on all things royal family, make sure you check out our Royal Hub. We’ve got you completely covered.

It’s not long now ’til we’re treated to the second royal wedding of the year. How lucky are we?

After announcing their engagement in January, Princess Eugenie is set to marry long-term boyfriend Jack Brooksbank in less than 24 hours. (Here’s where you can watch it in Australia.)

Hooray for weddings. Hooray for weddings of the Princess-y kind. And hooray for expanding the royal bloodline.

Except… that’s not really the case for Eugenie and Jack, because – there’s no other way to say it rather than just come out with it – the engaged pair are actually kinda, sorta related.

While they’re not the type of related that means they grew up attending the same family Christmas functions, they do have a distant ancestor in common.

According to UK publication Metro, Thomas Coke, who was the second Earl of Leicester and who died in 1909 is the common link between the engaged pair.

Princess Eugenie Jack Brooksbank related
Um...
ADVERTISEMENT

Thomas Coke was actually Jack's great-great-grandfather. And Thomas Coke's daughter, Lady Julie Coke, is the great-great grandmother of Eugenie's mother, Sarah 'Fergie' Ferguson, Duchess of York.

That makes Eugenie and Jack third cousins, twice removed.

Here's a simple diagram to help you figure it all out:

confusing plan conspiracy
This makes it so much more clear....
ADVERTISEMENT

To be honest, third cousins, twice removed is quite the tenuous link. My third cousin twice removed could have made my latte last week and I would have NO IDEA. So it's safe to say the pair were unaware of their family ties when they met on a Swiss ski trip all those years ago.

Of course, Eugenie and Jack aren't the only royal couple who have been proven to have a familial link in recent years.

Prince William and Kate Middleton are 12th cousins, once removed. And Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip are both directly related to Queen Victoria, making them third cousins.

And within days of announcing their engagement, for reasons unknown to anyone (although we suspect it's because some people don't want the world to have nice things...) Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were also "shown" to be related.

meghan markle prince harry smiling 2018
Image via Instagram.
ADVERTISEMENT

Yep, the pair apparently share the same great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather.

That's... that's 14 greats.

Heck, if that's what we're using to measure if people are related then... WELCOME TO MY FAMILY, DEAR READER!

Listen to the latest episode of Mamamia Out Loud here, were we discuss everything from tennis to the new moon:

00:00 / ???