English Noble Family's heritage traced in study
The lineage of one of the longest-established noble English families could extend back as far as pre-Roman times, according to genealogy research at the University of Strathclyde.
The Berkeley family can trace their ancestry to the mid-11th century, before the time of the Norman conquest, and are generally recognised as one of only a handful of families who can reliably trace their ancestry back through the male line to before 1066.
At this time, their earliest known ancestor, Eadnoth the Constable, served as Royal official to King Edward the Confessor and King Harold. Eadnoth’s grandson, Robert Fitzharding, was granted the Barony of Berkeley and his son Maurice married one of the Berkeley family, whose surname he took on.
Eadnoth was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman but DNA testing of his male line descendants, examined by the Strathclyde researchers, has shown that their origins may date back even further, to an ancestor belonging to a genetic group which arrived in the UK earlier than the Anglo-Saxons’ settlement around the middle of the 5th century. The descendants tested were Julian Lennox Berkeley, middle son of the composer Sir Lennox Berkeley, and great grandson of George Lennox Rawdon Berkeley, 7th Earl of Berkeley (1827-1888); and Viscount Portman.
The results of the research have delighted members of the Berkeley family. Charles Berkeley, whose father, John, is the current owner of family seat Berkeley Castle, said: “It is very interesting to hear that, through recent DNA tests done on members of the Berkeley family, the origins of the male line of the family have been established as dating from pre-Anglo-Saxon times. Although regarded as Anglo-Saxon, this research suggests that our ancestors were in England at an even earlier period.
”The study has been carried out by researchers from Strathclyde’s Genealogical Studies Postgraduate Programme. A member of the project, Graham Holton, said: “Eadnoth’s male line ancestor was a member of a people who appear to have travelled over a period of time from southern to northern Spain, Some eventually arrived in Britain, possibly earlier than the Roman period.
“Another possibility is that the ancestor from the same genetic group was a Roman soldier, recruited in Spain, who settled in Britain during the Roman occupation, which lasted from the first to fifth centuries. Either scenario would suggest that Eadnoth’s ancestor had settled in Britain before the Anglo-Saxon era.
“With the subsequent dominance of Anglo-Saxon culture, it would be almost inevitable that, over time, the family would adopt Anglo-Saxon names and become assimilated into the Anglo-Saxon culture. It is possible that the family maintained its status from the end of the Anglo-Saxon period into the Norman period - a very unusual occurrence - but may also have held this position from an even earlier Roman or pre-Roman period. This could be evidence of the longest period of noble status maintained in the male line by one family.”