Ancestry of Camilla, Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall

To find the trace of the French-Percheron ancestors of Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall, it is not necessary to cross the English Channel but to cross the Atlantic and to join Canada as William Coutts Keppel did it, one of the great-great-grandfathers of Camilla, born in London on April 15, 1832.

William Coutts Keppel married Sophia Mary MacNab on November 15, 1855 in Hamilton (Ontario-Canada). Sophia was a descendant of Marie Josephe Guyon born in Grondines in Quebec on October 13, 1715 and whose three great-grandparents were Percheron emigrants:

Jean Guyon, baptized at Saint-Jean Church in Mortagne-au-Perche (Orne, France) on August 1, 1619, son of the pioneers Jean Guyon and Mathurine Marie Robin, the direct ancestors of Celine Dion, that makes Camilla a cousin of Celine Dion

Zacharie Cloutier, also baptized at Saint-Jean Church in Mortagne-au-Perche (Orne, France) on August 16, 1617, son of the pioneers Zacharie Cloutier and Xainte Dupont

Jean Baptiste Trottier, son of Jules Trottier and Catherine Loiseau, emigrants originating from the vicinity of Ige (Orne, France), born in July 1646 when crossing the Atlantic from la Rochelle to Quebec on board the vessel Le Cardinal. Madonna being one descendant of Jules Trottier and Catherine Loiseau, Camilla is Madonna's cousin!

The family tree of Camilla counts another Percheron branch via the great-great-grandmother of Marie Josephe Guyon, Marie Boucher born in Mortagne-au-Perche in 1619, daughter of Boucher Gaspard and Nicole Lemaire born in Mortagne in 1599 and in Mamers (Sarthe, France) in 1595 respectively.

Those family ties between Camilla and the Percheron emigrants are the reflection of the official registers. However, the paternity of the maternal grandmother of Camilla, Sonia Rosemary Keppel, is being disputed. It could be that Camilla is not genetically related to the Percheron pioneers.

Alice Frederica Edmonstone, Camilla's great-grandmother, married George Keppel on June 1, 1891. After having given birth to a first daughter Violet on June 6, Alice became in 1898 and during the next twelve years the mistress of Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII of England on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. Sonia, Alice's second daughter, was born on May 24, 1900 in London. Who is the biological father of Sonia? Nobody can say it with certainty. Legally it was decided when George acknowledged Sonia as his child and gave her his name (Keppel). Thus officially, Camilla has Percheron-French blood and Celine Dion and Madonna are her cousins.