Ain't genealogy fun?

[gilmore]

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm, but virtually everyone of European descent descends from royalty, especially those with British ancestry where the gene pool was more self-contained and closed than in the rest of Europe.

The math is the answer. We have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, etc. If you go back far enough, there are many, many more ancestors in, say, the 40th generation, or maybe 1,000 years ago, than there were humans alive on the planet, around 1,099,511,627,776.

In doing genealogical research, we rely on records such as wills, deeds, marriage agreements, etc that basically document the transference of wealth. Hence, royalty and the aristocracy are better documented than peasants, and it is more likely that one will come across evidence of descent from them than from peasants, even though the latter were much more numerous. As some one once said, we all descend from Charlemagne, but we also descend from his stable boy.