What is considered royalty my friend traced his family back to king henry the eighth and his family had an?

If they wanted to string him up they would. English monarchs are not very popular in Ireland The Tudor dynasty ended with Elizabeth 1 - so his relatives rather missed their chance - and they would have no claim on the throne since the Act of Union.

I would suggest that a great many home-bred Brits. can trace their lines back to royalty, whether to the legitimate line, or the bastard line. So basically in answer to your friend, no. He's no more royal than I am, probably.

Royalty are the children and grandchildren of the current monarch. Several cousins qualify, too. If he can merely trace his ancestry to a king four hundred, five hundred years ago, that puts him in a situation that makes him one of a majority of the people who have British ancestry. What you give us doesn't even say if all the parties involved are legitimate children (which they likely aren't, making them not even royalty if they WERE his sons/daughters). Truth: Henry VIII had NO legitimate grandchildren. His three legitimate children died childless. Your friend couldn't possibly be royalty, based on that simple fact. Also, keep in mind, most of the people who do genealogies put someone famous or royal into the background, because it's very difficult for anyone to refute, when there is no legitimate claim to such ancestry.

Henry VIII had only three legitimate children - Bloody Mary, Edward VI and Elizabeth I - and they all died childless. So your friend can't be descended from any of them. He has only one acknowledged illegitimate child, Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond. However, he died childless, too. There are six people of whom at one time or another it has been claimed that they were Henry VIII's unacknowledged bastard children; see the link. However, none of these claims are proven or even particularly convincing. Therefore, the most your friend can possibly claim is that he is descended from someone who may *just possibly* have been an illegitimate child of Henry VIII. Illegitimate children are not and never have been considered royalty. So I'm afraid that, even if that claim could be proved true, nobody in England, Ireland or anywhere else would consider him royalty.

Royalty: the monarch the monarch's children the monarch's grand-children from males. That's is. Anything else is NOT Royal, no matter who their ancestors are. Even Princess Anne's children are not Royal, although she is. And, when William and Catherine have children, unless the law changes (or the Queen dies), technically they won't be Royal either, even though the eldest would be 3rd in line for the Throne.

As other posters have said, virtually everyone has royal ancestry. The population used to be a lot smaller, the fortunes of families have risen and fallen over the centuries, it would be almost impossible NOT to have some royals dangling from the upper branches of your family tree. But being a descendant of royals does not make you royal. To be royal, you must be fairly closely-related to a currently reigning monarch. Even that might not do it. The Queen in the UK has grandchildren, great-grandchildren, a niece, nephew and fairly close cousins who are not royal. So, no, people in England and Ireland would not consider your friend royal. I hope your friend knows that he cannot be a direct descendant of Henry VIII. Henry's children had no children, so his direct line died out, unless he really was the father of Mary Boleyn's elder child, which is uncertain. (There might have been other illegitimate children.) However, your friend could have a Tudor connection via another figure.

Anyone with Royal blood is considered Royalty. So, yes, if he can show evidence of his Royal ancestry he is Royalty. Most people do not realise that most people that have European ancestry, that includes most people that live in North and South America, are descended from Charlemagne as well as many other Royals. So there are billions of Royals.