Mr Reagan linked to king

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 16

Mr Reagan linked to king

NZPA-Reuter London Not only is President Reagan related to Irish royalty, but possibly to dethroned and impoverished European monarchs and France’s Socialist President, Francois Mitterrand, according to British genealogists. Harold Brooks-Baker, a director of Burke’s “Peerage,” a bible of aristocratic lineage, told Reuters that Mr Reagan’s family had been traced to King Brian Boru of Ireland in the eleventh century. Burke’s was also investigating possible family links

with European royal families, including Britain’s, he said. Burke’s is drawing up a special family tree which will be presented to Mr Reagan when he returns to his family roots in the tiny Irish village of Ballyporeen in June. Mr Brooks-Baker said they had traced Mr Reagan direct to his great-great-great-grandparents in Ireland. They had then established the link with Brian Boru through a sixteenth century document found in an English duke’s stately home. “He is, ipso facto, related to anyone who descends from Brian Boru and that

brings in a rather large number of European monarchs — on and off the throne,” he said. Mr Mitterrand, himself related to George I of England and Hanover, was one of his relations, although

very distant, he said. Mr Brooks-Baker said that there was a 150-year gap in Mr Reagan’s family tree but that Burke’s genealogists had been able to pick up the trail again.