Moses McCarter - Chasing Moses - One Man's Legacy

10/07/2026

👑⚔️ THE PLANTAGENETS & ANJOU: when the family tree became a battlefield

The Plantagenets did not just inherit a crown — they inherited power, land, ambition, and enough family drama to keep historians employed forever.

It begins with Henry II, son of Empress Matilda and Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou. Through his father, he carried the Angevin line. Through his mother, he carried the Norman royal claim. Through his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, he gained one of the most powerful land connections in Europe.

Translation: this family did not just marry well.
They married like they were building an empire. 👑

Henry II’s sons brought even more chaos.

Richard the Lionheart became the crusader king.
John lost Normandy, angered the barons, and ended up sealing Magna Carta in 1215.
Then came Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, and Edward III — kings who shaped law, war, Scotland, France, Parliament, and the future of the English crown.

But here is where the bloodline gets dangerous.

Edward III’s descendants split into rival branches:

🌹 House of Lancaster through John of Gaunt
🌹 House of York through Lionel of Antwerp and later Yorkist descent

Same royal family. Same Plantagenet blood. Same crown.

And eventually?
They turned on each other in the Wars of the Roses.

This is why genealogy matters. These are not just names in boxes. These are claims, marriages, inheritances, land rights, rival heirs, and the slow-burning fuse that explodes into civil war.

Medieval lesson of the day:
When everyone has royal blood, nobody agrees who gets the crown.

So let’s debate:

Were the Wars of the Roses really Lancaster vs York… or was it just one Plantagenet family feud that got completely out of hand? 👀

Share this if you love royal genealogy, medieval history, and watching one family turn inheritance into a national crisis.

© 2026 The Lennox Ark | Royal Lineage Series

10/07/2026

THE STEWARTS: Scotland’s Royal House — from Bruce blood to the modern monarchy

This is the royal line that sits at the heart of Scotland’s story.

Before the Stewarts became kings, they were the High Stewards of Scotland — powerful royal officers serving the crown. Then came the marriage that changed everything:

Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland, married Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce.

That union carried the Bruce royal bloodline into the Stewart family, and in 1371 their son became Robert II, the first Stewart King of Scots.

From there, the Stewart line shaped Scotland for centuries:

Robert II
Robert III
James I
James II
James III
James IV
James V
Mary, Queen of Scots
James VI of Scotland

Then came the moment that changed Britain forever.

In 1603, James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne as James I of England. Scotland did not conquer England. England did not conquer Scotland. The crowns were united through bloodline, inheritance, and royal descent.

That is why the Stewart line matters.

The Stewarts connect:

Bruce Scotland
Medieval kingship
Mary, Queen of Scots
The Union of the Crowns
The later Stuarts
The Hanoverians
Queen Victoria
And the modern royal family

And yes — this is why we follow these lines so closely in The Lennox Ark. The Stewarts are not just “royal history.” They are a framework for understanding Scotland’s noble houses, clan connections, charter trails, marriages, heirs, land movement, and the bloodlines that shaped Britain.

This poster also shows one of the most important succession moments after the later Stuarts:

Mary II, daughter of James II, ruled jointly with her husband William III of Orange after the Glorious Revolution. Her sister Queen Anne followed, and when Anne died without surviving children, the crown passed to the Hanoverian line.

One bloodline.
One legacy.
One long, complicated, glorious royal paper trail.

And this is exactly why genealogy is never “just names and dates.”

It is power.
It is inheritance.
It is survival.
It is who had the blood, who had the claim, and who managed to keep the crown.

So let’s talk Stewart lines. 👀

Do you have a Stewart, Stuart, Steward, or royal Scottish connection in your family tree? Drop your ancestor, place, date, or family story below. Bonus points for sources, charters, DNA clues, or a family legend that needs dragged into the evidence room.

Because in Scottish genealogy, the Stewarts are not just a branch.

They are the trunk with a crown on it. 👑

© 2026 The Lennox Ark | Royal Lineage Series

10/07/2026

🌹⚔️ THE WARS OF THE ROSES: when one royal family tore itself apart for the crown

This was not England vs. France.
This was not Scots vs. English.

This was Plantagenet vs. Plantagenet — one bloodline, two rival houses, and a kingdom dragged through decades of fear, battle, betrayal, and shifting crowns.

Both Lancaster and York descended from King Edward III.

The House of Lancaster came through John of Gaunt, Edward III’s powerful son.
The House of York built its claim through the senior descent of Lionel of Antwerp, carried into the York line through the Mortimers, and also through the York branch of the Plantagenets.

Same royal grandfather.
Same royal blood.
One crown.

And that is where the trouble began.

Under Henry VI, England was weak, divided, and deeply unstable. Henry was not a warrior king like his father, Henry V. He struggled with leadership, suffered mental collapse, and left the realm open to faction, ambition, and outright power grabs.

Into that vacuum stepped Richard, Duke of York.

What began as a struggle for influence at court became something far worse — a dynastic war. Noble families chose sides. Old loyalties shattered. Kings were deposed, restored, captured, and replaced. Battles like Towton turned the countryside into slaughterhouses. Powerful men rose fast and died faster.

Then came the Yorkist kings.

Edward IV took the throne.
His brother Richard III followed after one of the darkest succession crises in English history.
And the princes in the Tower became one of the great shadows hanging over the Yorkist name.

But the war did not truly end until Bosworth Field, 1485.

There, Richard III fell in battle, and Henry Tudor defeated him and seized the crown as Henry VII.

That victory did more than end a king’s life.
It ended an era.

Henry Tudor then married Elizabeth of York, joining the red rose of Lancaster to the white rose of York — and in that marriage, the blood feud that had torn England apart was finally bound into one new dynasty:

The Tudors.

That is why the Wars of the Roses matter.

This was not just a medieval civil war.
It was a succession crisis that reshaped the English monarchy, destroyed old noble houses, and opened the door to the Tudor age. It is the reason the crown passed from Plantagenet hands into Tudor hands — and why one marriage became one of the most important political unions in British history.

History lesson of the day:

When too many people have royal blood, the family tree stops being a pedigree and starts being a battlefield. 👑

So let’s talk:

Do you see the Wars of the Roses as a battle between Lancaster and York — or as one long Plantagenet family collapse?

© 2026 The Lennox Ark | Royal Lineage Series

10/07/2026

👑🌹 THE TUDORS: the dynasty born from war, marriage, and one very sharp survival instinct

The Tudors did not inherit peace.

They inherited a kingdom exhausted by the Wars of the Roses, where Lancaster and York — two rival branches of the Plantagenet family — had spent decades fighting over the English crown.

By 1485, England was tired, bloody, divided, and politically dangerous.

Then came Henry Tudor.

He was not the obvious winner. He was not the strongest claimant on paper. But at Bosworth Field, Henry defeated Richard III, took the crown as Henry VII, and did what every smart dynasty-builder does after a war:

He married the other side.

His marriage to Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, united the red rose of Lancaster with the white rose of York. One marriage ended a civil war, created the Tudor rose, and gave England a new royal brand.

And what a brand it became.

Their son, Henry VIII, turned the Tudor name into legend — and chaos. Six wives, a break with Rome, the creation of the Church of England, and a succession crisis that changed religion, politics, and royal power forever.

Then came his children.

Edward VI, the boy king, pushed England further into Protestant reform but died young.

Mary I, daughter of Catherine of Aragon, tried to restore Catholicism and became one of the most controversial queens in English history.

Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn, survived scandal, danger, imprisonment, and doubt — then became one of England’s most powerful monarchs. She never married, never named a child, and ruled by intelligence, image, strategy, and pure iron will.

But here is the twist:

The Tudors rose because one marriage created heirs.
The Tudors ended because Elizabeth left none.

When Elizabeth I died in 1603, the crown passed to James VI of Scotland, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, beginning the Stuart era in England.

So the Tudor story is not just about Henry VIII and his wives. It is bigger than that.

It is the story of a dynasty that rose from a battlefield, healed a divided kingdom through marriage, reshaped religion, strengthened monarchy, expanded England’s global reach, and then vanished because the family tree ran out of legitimate branches.

History lesson of the day:

A dynasty can be born from one marriage — and end from one missing heir.

Now let’s talk. 👀

Were the Tudors England’s greatest comeback story, or were they just the most successful royal rebrand in history?

© 2026 The Lennox Ark | Royal Lineage Series

10/07/2026

👑 THE STEWARTS / STUARTS: Scotland’s royal house that carried Bruce blood into the modern monarchy

This chart follows one of the most important royal lines in Scottish and British history: the House of Stewart, later often spelled Stuart.

The story begins with Robert II, who became King of Scots in 1371. His claim came through his mother, Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert the Bruce, and his father, Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland.

That marriage was the turning point.

Bruce blood + Stewart inheritance = Scotland’s Stewart kings.

From Robert II came the long line of Stewart monarchs:

Robert III
James I
James II
James III
James IV
James V
Mary, Queen of Scots
James VI of Scotland

Then the story becomes bigger than Scotland.

In 1603, James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne as James I of England after the death of Elizabeth I. This is called the Union of the Crowns — Scotland and England remained separate kingdoms, but they now shared one monarch.

That is huge.

Scotland did not disappear. England did not absorb Scotland in 1603. The crowns were joined through royal bloodline and inheritance.

From there, the Stewart/Stuart line continued through the dramatic Stuart era:

James I of England / James VI of Scotland
Charles I — executed after the English Civil War
Charles II — restored after the Commonwealth
James II — overthrown in the Glorious Revolution
Mary II and William III — ruled jointly
Queen Anne — the last Stuart monarch

Then came another major turning point.

In 1707, during Queen Anne’s reign, the Acts of Union united Scotland and England into the Kingdom of Great Britain. This is different from the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

So think of it this way:

1603 = one monarch, two kingdoms
1707 = one kingdom, one parliament

After Queen Anne died without surviving children, the crown passed to the House of Hanover, then later through Queen Victoria, the line continued into Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which became the House of Windsor during World War I.

That is why this chart matters.

It shows how Scotland’s Stewart line connects:

Robert the Bruce
→ Marjorie Bruce
→ Robert II Stewart
→ Mary, Queen of Scots
→ James VI & I
→ the Stuart monarchs
→ Hanover
→ Queen Victoria
→ Windsor
→ the modern royal family

This is not just a royal family tree. It is the spine of Scottish and British royal succession.

For The Lennox Ark, this line is central because the Stewarts connect into so many Scottish noble, clan, charter, and landholding families. Follow the Stewarts, and you are following the framework of medieval and early modern Scotland itself.

Genealogy lesson of the day:

A royal line does not always move in a straight line — sometimes it survives through daughters, marriages, cousins, disputed heirs, and one very stubborn paper trail.

So let’s talk:

Do you have a Stewart, Stuart, Steward, Bruce, royal Scottish, or noble Scottish line in your tree? Drop the names, dates, places, or family story below.

Bring the receipts if you have them.
Family legends are welcome too — but they may be gently escorted into the evidence room. 👑

© 2026 The Lennox Ark | Royal Lineage Series

10/07/2026

10/07/2026

📢 GENEALOGY REALITY CHECK: Margaret Bruce has NO modern descendants

I understand why people want to claim Bruce heritage. Trust me, I get it. Robert the Bruce is one of the biggest names in Scottish history.

But wanting a line to be true does not make it true.

And we are not going to let people keep repeating a mistake just because it sounds prettier on a family tree.

So let’s say this clearly:

Margaret Bruce
Daughter of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, and Elizabeth de Burgh, Queen of Scots
married William, Earl of Sutherland.

Margaret died in childbirth. Her only child was a son, and that son died young without leaving a surviving line. In plain genealogy terms:

🚨 MARGARET BRUCE HAS NO MODERN DESCENDANTS. 🚨

Repeat it for the people in the back who are already typing angrily:

If you think you descend from Margaret Bruce, you almost certainly mean you descend from William, Earl of Sutherland’s later wife — Joanna / Joan de Menteith.

And that means Joanna deserves her proper place in the story.

Because the surviving Sutherland descendants do not come through Margaret Bruce. They come through William’s later marriage to Joanna de Menteith.

So who was Joanna?

Joanna / Joan de Menteith was the daughter of Sir John Menteith. The Menteith family was tied to one of Scotland’s important old regional lordships, and Sir John belonged to the Menteith line descended from Walter Bailloch Stewart and Mary, Countess of Menteith. Walter Bailloch was a younger son of the High Steward family, which makes Joanna part of a powerful Stewart-Menteith network, not some random footnote shoved into the margins.

Joanna herself was no small connection. She married more than once, and one of her later marriages was to William Sutherland, 5th Earl of Sutherland. That is the marriage through which the continuing Sutherland line is traced — not through Margaret Bruce.

So let’s give both women the truth.

Margaret Bruce matters because she was the daughter of Robert the Bruce and part of a major royal marriage alliance.

Joanna de Menteith matters because her line is the one that actually continued.

A marriage creates a connection.
A child creates a line.
But only surviving descendants create a living descent.

Margaret’s Bruce line ended.
Joanna’s Menteith-Sutherland line continued.

That is not an insult to Margaret. That is good genealogy.

And if your tree runs through the later Earls of Sutherland, then Joanna de Menteith is not a “replacement ancestor.” She is your ancestor. Say her name. Give her credit. Put her back where she belongs.

Because genealogy is not about grabbing the flashiest name.

It is about following the correct bloodline.

© 2026 The Lennox Ark

10/07/2026

Beautiful Wales — Cymru Am Byth

I recently learned that my DNA estimate shows about 10% Welsh, even though I do not yet have a known Welsh line in my paper trail.

As a genealogist, I know what that means. Ethnicity estimates are not proof of one single ancestor, and they can reflect older regional ancestry hiding behind later surnames, migrations, and borders. Welsh, English, Scottish, Cornish, and ancient Brittonic lines have overlapped for centuries.

But still — it made me stop and think.

Wales carries one of the deepest surviving genetic echoes of ancient Britain. Not “pure,” not untouched, and not frozen in time — no people are. But Welsh DNA can reflect an older Brittonic layer of the island, from people who were there before the Anglo-Saxon migrations reshaped much of eastern and southern Britain.

So when my DNA says Welsh, it may not mean I have a recent Welsh surname waiting to be found.

It may mean I carry a piece of that older Brittonic world.

And that is powerful.

The Welsh were not newcomers to the edge of Britain. They were part of the older story of Britain itself. Even the word “Welsh” was an outsider-name, used by Anglo-Saxon speakers. The people’s own name is Cymry — fellow countrymen — and their land is Cymru.

I have always felt like an old soul, drawn to ancient places, forgotten names, old kingdoms, and stories buried beneath borders and languages.

Maybe that 10% is not just a number.

Maybe it is a breadcrumb.

Not proof.
Not certainty.
But a whisper from an older layer of my ancestry.

And if genealogy has taught me anything, it is this:

The ancestors do not always shout.
Sometimes they wait quietly until we are ready to listen.

Beautiful Wales. Ancient roots. Living memory. Cymru am byth.

10/07/2026

Autosomal DNA is like two great family rivers pouring into one new life.

Mom’s river might be blue.
Dad’s river might be red.

But inside those rivers are many older colors.

A yellow stream from a great-grandmother.
A green streak from a distant cousin line.
A purple thread from an ancestor whose name may be long forgotten.

When a baby is created, that little egg receives 50% from Mom and 50% from Dad.

But it does not receive every color in the family river.

It receives one unique scoop.

That baby begins “cooking” into its own person, carrying the colors that happened to pour into that exact life.

And here is where people get confused:

Sometimes a child appears to show a color that the parent does not show.

That does not mean the child got DNA from nowhere.

It usually means the parent carried a tiny hidden piece — so small or so mixed that the test did not label it clearly. But when that piece passed into the child, it became easier to see.

So the color was not magic.

It was hiding in the river.

That is why siblings can test differently.

One child may inherit more yellow from great-grandmother.
Another may inherit more green from a distant line.
One sibling may match Cousin Bob.
Another may not match Bob at all.

Same parents.
Same rivers.
Different scoops.

Autosomal DNA is not the whole family tree.

It is the part of the ancestral river that happened to pour into you.

10/07/2026

Here is where this case gets even more interesting.

This is not just a Bruce claim.

This is a Stewart-Douglas power story.

Robert III Stewart and Annabella Drummond had 3 daughters who married into different Douglas power lines. That matters!

So before anyone starts yelling “which Douglas?” from the back of the courtroom, let’s be clear.

This case does not run through the senior Black Douglas line.

This case runs through Mary Stewart, daughter of Robert III and Annabella Drummond, who married George Douglas, 1st Earl of Angus.

That is the Red Douglas / Angus branch.

From Mary Stewart and George Douglas comes Elizabeth Douglas, who married Alexander Forbes, 1st Lord Forbes.

From there, the line moves into the Forbes lordship family, then to Agnes Forbes and Alexander Skene of Skene, then through the Skene/Skeen line, and eventually to an American family.

So yes, this is a Bruce Descent Trial.

But it is also our first Stewart-Douglas branch trial.

And if this one holds, we may eventually have to bring Robert III’s other daughters into court too.

Because these women did not marry quietly.

They married into power.

The first case before the jury:

Mary Stewart → Red Douglas / Angus → Forbes → Skene/Skeen → American descendants

Court is now in session.

Historical Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿