Kate Middleton related to novelist Jane Austen

According to a genealogy website, Prince William’s wife, Kate Middleton, is a distant relative of novelist Jane Austen.

28 June 2011, 12:00am

1 min read

Known for the best sellers ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’, author Jane Austen and the new Duchess of Cambridge are 11^th cousins, six times removed due to their 15^th centruy common ancestor Henry Percy, second Earl of Northumberland.

“Finding this connection between the Duchess of Cambridge and Jane Austen is very exciting since, in many ways, Catherine is the modern Jane Austen heroine: a middle class girl marrying the future King of England,” lead family historian Anastasia Harman said.

Middleton, a commoner with no aristocratic background married Prince William, second in line to the throne in April.

“Jane Austen may have written about happily-ever-after but it seems Catherine has found a nonfiction hero to spend her life with - far past the epilogue,” Harman added.