The Online Pedigrees

The first pedigree purporting to chart Andre de Guise's ancestry was published in September 2005 by Baronage Press on their website at www.baronagepress.co.uk

As we examine the original certificates establishing the true ancestry of "Prince Andre de Guise" we will find that the dates of death given here for his mother and grandmother, like their titles, are factually incorrect.  Furthermore, the names of his great grandfather and great-great grandfather are also wrong.  Not an inspiring mark of scholarship - especially from the "modest and retiring man" who tells us on one of his own websites that he is "currently producing the definitive written compilation of the histories of the great European princely families". 

This demonstrably false work was augmented by a document which Baronage Press also put online.  Its was initially claimed that this was Letters Patent issued in 1769 by Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany in favour of his alleged cousin, "Marie-Jeanne of Lorraine-Harcourt" [whose existence is otherwise unknown to history].  Baronage Press erroneously stated that Leopold was then Head of the House of Lorraine (his brother the Emperor was).  When various other discrepancies with this story were posted, the claim changed: it was not, after all, Letters Patent, but the opposite, a private letter - and possibly in translation at that.  When it was pointed out that it began "a tous presents et a venir" - "to all present and to come", no further attempts to defend or explain it were forthcoming.  I present it here - it has recently resurfaced on de Guise's own website as "evidence" of his claims:

It is worth noting that according to this letter, Marie-Jeanne was the daughter of Henri de Lorraine-Harcourt ("sa fille legitime").  This directly contradicts both the versions of de Guise's own pedigree, in which he alleges she was Henri's granddaughter, the child of his son Francois.  And "Francois" was, de Guise tells us, still living until 1773.  Why does "Leopold" ignore him?

Another curious feature of this claim is that "Leopold" states that he "has many times promised to our cousin the prince Henri de Lorraine-Harcourt, to recognise him as a member of our family".  According to de Guise, Henri was born in 1644; Leopold himself was not born until 1747, so we are left wondering how the two could have been intimately acquainted.

[In fact, this is just another howler by de Guise, whose pretence to be a scholar is about as apt as his claims to be a prince: Henri, the illegitimate son of Francois, Comte d'Harcourt, was not born until 1674.  He was apparently legitimated in 1698, but this did not give him any succession rights or the right to any titles.]

In addition to publishing this clumsy forgery on his website, de Guise has also put forward (November 2006) a further concocted pedigree with some changes - largely amending the names of his ancestors to bring them into line with the certificates to be found on the following pages of my site.  However, numerous dates (e.g. his mother's death, his grandmother's birth and death) are still wrong.  This is the second version of the pedigree, still riddled with many basic errors:

How can anyone have confidence in a claim whose particulars keep changing to accommodate facts as they emerge?

Again, when considering the facts of the matter, it should be noted that Henri was not the elder son of Francois, Comte d'Harcourt, as presented misleadingly (he was born in 1674, remember, not 1644).  Additionally, although the male-line of Alphonse-Henri (1648-1718) died out in 1747, two granddaughters survived, and their heirs inherited the Guise properties - to the exclusion of any hypothetical descendants of their legitimated granduncle who would have had no inheritance rights in any case.  The Guise estates were sold, and remained in other hands until the Revolution of 1789.  It is there that any claims to feudal titles lie.