Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte) (19 May 1744 - 17 November 1818) as Queen Charlotte was the queen consort of King George III.

Modern ancestral studies postulating "Negro features"

The queen's biographer Olwen Hedley stated that Queen Charlotte's personal physician, Christian Friedrich, Baron von Stockmar, described his patient as having "true mulatto features" ("ein wahres Mulattengesicht"), presumably meaning that she appeared to have some Negro blood in his opinion.

Related Topics:
Olwen Hedley - Christian Friedrich, Baron von Stockmar

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In support of this comment, some researchers have noted that Queen Charlotte was a descendant, through at least three and possibly through as many as six lines, of Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a Portuguese noblewoman who lived in the 15th century. Castro was a descendant of the 13th-century Portuguese monarch Alfonso (Afonso) III and his mistress, Mourana Gil -- who is described as African of Moorish descent.

Related Topics:
15th century - Alfonso (Afonso) III

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Castro eventually became an ancestress of most northern European royals, including George III.

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Critics of this research, however, argue that Castro's distant perch in the queen's family tree makes any presumed African ancestry highly negligible, and no different from that held by any other member of any German princely house at that time. However, Charlotte, to date, is the most prominent of Castro's descendants to have been described by contemporaries as having what they believed were negroid features, features that were much commented on during her youth and caricaturized by contemporary cartoonists.

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The idea of her alleged negroid features being inherited is apparently based on the possibilities of genetical material from several sides of one's ancestry combining and in random concentrating in that one individual. Such usually requires closer ancestors with similar features, and those genes coming from the both sides of one's parentage. We know (e.g from knowledge about most recent common ancestor) that each person has some ancestry in all parts of the planet. As Charlotte's both parents undoubtedly were descended also from an insignificant number of African ancestors, her broader features and darker coloring could be explained better even by such combination than claiming that a foremother in 15th century had left a hidden gene pool that did not emerge in any of the intervening generations but suddenly were visibly present in Charlotte.

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However, much more probable explanation to anyone's Subsaharan features would be a parent being of visible Negro blood.

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Another story (myth or like) of a black child born to European royals is that of a black daughter of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain.

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