Talk:Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen

IS African!

This seems to be a correntThe previous version said that Margarita de Castro e Sousa was descendant of the King Afonso III of Portugal and an African mistress of him (by that meaning Black). This would not be a problem but for the fact that it is not true! Afonso III of Portugal had descendants from Matilda II of Boulogne, Beatrix of Castile, Maria Peres de Enxara and Madragana (Mor Afonso), as well as up to 7 children other from unknown mother(s). The one that is repeatedly refered to as African is Madragana ( called Mor Afonso after bearing two children to the King: Martim Afonso Chichorro and Urraca Afonso). She was not African. People abusively assume that because she was the daughther of the Governor of the city of Faro (in the Algarve), then a region dominated by the Moors (who were North Africans, which is quite different from saying just Africans...). The fact is that Afonso III of Portugal captured the city and its governor Aloandro Ben Bekar, not a Moor, but a Mozarab (Iberian Christians living under Muslim domination), gave up his daugther to the King. You might find suprising that a Moorish town (even if the majority of the population was Christian, the political power was Moorish) was governed by a Christian, but you might do well to remember that the Moors always had Christian or Jews in high level positions, and Aloandro Ben Bekar (or Aloandro Ben Bakr) was from an old lineage of Mozarabs who had even taken control of the city away from the Muslims for certain periods in the past (people like Yahia Ben Bakr and Bakr Ben Yahia). So, they were definitively not Africans, not even Moors, but native Iberians! So, Elizabeth Albertine, Princess of Saxe-Hildburghausen, is not descendent of an African woman. Mind you, it would not be a problem if she was! Be she wasn't. The Ogre 01:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want to know the direct line of descent here goes:

• King Afonso III of Portugal and Madragana (Mor Afonso) (daugther of Aloandro Ben Bekar) had...
• Martim Afonso Chichorro, who, with Inês Lourenço de Valadares, had...
• Martim Afonso Chichorro II, who, with Aldonça Anes de Briteiros, had...
• Vasco Martins de Sousa Chichorro, who, with Estefânia Garcia, had...
• Afonso Vasques de Sousa, who, with Leonor Lopes de Sousa, had...
• Mécia de Sousa, who, with Fernando de Castro, had...
• Margarita de Castro e Sousa, who, with Jean de Neufchâtel, had...
• Fernando de Neufchatel, who, with Claudia de Vergy, had...
• Antonieta de Neufchatel, who, with Filipe, Count of Salm and Wildrheingrave of Dhaun, had...
• Margarida, Wild-rheingravina of Dhaun, who, with Eberard XII, Count of Erbach , had...
• Georg III, Count of Erbach, who, with Maria de Barby e Mühlingen, had...
• Jorge Alberto I, Count of Erbach, who, with Isabel Doroteia, Countess of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst , had...
• Jorge Luis I, Count of Erbach, who, with Amália Catarina, Countess of Waldeck-Eisenberg , had...
• Sophia Albertine, Countess of Erbach, who, with Ernst Frederick I, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, had...
• Elizabeth Albertine, Princess of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Et voilá! If you want to find out more about Elizabeth Albertine ancestors (and there's much more data available!) check her out in this Portuguese genealogical site. Best regards. The Ogre 01:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sephardic Jewish Ancestry?

What about the possibility of this family/person having Sephardic Jewish ancestry? There were MANY Sephardic Jews in Spain/Portugal (hundreds of thousands of them), but many of them were driven out of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions (those that did not want to be expelled would face the death penalty, or they could convert to Catholicism and become "New Christians," or "marranos"/"conversos"). However, before they were expelled from both countries (from Spain in 1492; Portugal in 1497) these Jews often intermarried to some extent with the royalty and upper-classes of those countries, and thus some lingered on in those countries a bit even after the vast bulk had been expelled (many remain even today). So possibly this person/family had some Sephardic Jewish ancestry? Please note that these Sephardic Jews are different from the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews. --172.144.52.244 06:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Aloandro Ben Bekar was partially of Sephardic origin, so Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen also had that in her genealogy. Notice however that, contrary to what you said, it was not often that jews "intermarried to some extent with the royalty and upper-classes of those countries, and thus some lingered on in those countries a bit even after the vast bulk had been expelled (many remain even today)". The Ogre 13:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)