Petition for membership in the SDC

The Application Process

Each application must be accompanied with evidence proving the descent. For the more recent generations, this will include primary sources such as vital records collected by government agencies, including records of birth, marriage, and death. (For privacy's sake, documentation of events happening after 1940 are not required.) Published abstracts of records such as wills, deeds, and court documents, as well as the records kept by churches and religious bodies are also acceptable. Diaries, account books, gravestones, and memorial inscriptions are also useful. In general, published material must have been collected contemporary of the period with which it purports to deal.

Secondary sources, including compiled genealogies, are less reliable and are generally not accepted as evidence for more recent generations (approximately the last ten), with certain exceptions. As a rule, the more remote portions of the pedigree, particularly in the medieval period, are more likely to require recourse to published evidence and compiled genealogies.

Although the following books may provide the researcher with useful clues, they are not accepted as proof without independent evidence supporting the claim:

Compiled lineage papers from other organizations are also not acceptable.

The following sources, however, are generally accepted as evidence in their own right:

For additional information, or to request a petition for membership, please contact Headquarters.

Recourse to the following link will provide an outline of the first few generations of the descendants of William the Conqueror. It can be seen that his descents are spread fairly widely in the royalty and nobility of Britain and Europe. Through his Plantagenet descendant King Edward III, the Conqueror's bloodline entered the gentry and middle classes of England. It is through this link that many Americans of British descent can trace a connection.

The following link lists the recognized companions of William the Conqueror.

Although former Augustan Society patron, the late Dr. Otto von Habsburg, never applied for membership in the Society of Descendants of the Conquest (or it's predecessor groups), he would have had many possible lines of descent from King William I, including the one outlined on this linked page.

This page maintained by the Webmaster in consultation with the Dean of the SDLKJ. Last modified 15 March 2016.