QUEEN MARY AS A TRANSPORT SHIP FOR WAR BRIDES

WASHINGTON POST THE BRIDES OF WAR  This article written by Pat Broeske from the 1985 was easy to link to without having to have a subscription and was creatively written. It was focused on a recent reunion of War Brides (women who married American soldiers during World War II - often English women) at the time.

EXCERPT: In addition to its 72 wartime voyages, the Queen Mary made 13 war bride trips -- during which time its decks were covered from bow to stern with diapers hung out to dry.  As more than one war bride was to remind, "They didn't have the disposable diapers then."

EXCERPT: "And a lot of amazing memories," said Bill Meade.  There were tears in his eyes as he added, "It was such a different world then, it's almost impossible to describe it to someone who wasn't there, but when they finally turned the lights on in the cities again it was like being reborn.  So much had happened.  A lot of us thought we were never going to make it home again.  Out buddies had died.  But war or no war, you can't stop people from falling in love."

"BLACK BLOOD" ALREADY IN ROYAL FAMILY ? DIANA's INDIA HERITAGE

Baby Boy Sussex has been born and of course the world awaits that first photo.

WASHINGTON POST : BRITAIN'S BLACK QUEEN : Will Meghan Markle ... article by Deneen L. Brown

EXCERPT: Some historians suspect that Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, who bore the King 15 children, was of African descent.  Historian Mario De Valdes y Cocom argues that Queen Charlotte was directly descended from a black branch of the Portuguese royal family Alfonso III and his concubine, Ouruana, a black Moor.

In the 13th century, " Alfonso III of Portugal conquered a little town named Faro from the Moors," said Valdes, a researcher on the 1996 FRONTLINE PBS documentary, "Secret Daughter."  He demanded the governor's daughter as a paramour.  He had three children with her."

Read the full article at the link.  It's very interesting.

And then this older article:

ABROAD IN THE YARD: PRINCE WILLIAM DNA - INDIAN ANCESTRY
This article appeared in an Ancestry (The genealogy site) article. 
Prince William will be the first British King with proven ancestry from India, a DNA test has revealed.  His rare mitochondrial DNA comes from his 5 X great grandmother, "a dark-skinned native of Bombay."

EXCERPT:  (Prince William's) genetic link to India was proven by saliva samples from relatives who share his direct maternal (mother Diana's) lineage to Eliza Kewark.  She lived at the start of the 19th century in western India, "Without benefit of matrimony," with his Scottish ancestor Theodore Forbes, an East India Company merchant. ...

Geneticist Dr. Jim Wilson of BritainsDNA, who carried out the tests, found that Eliza's descendants had an incredibly rare tpe of mtDNA (haplogroup R30b), so far recorded in only 14 other people - 13 from India and one from Nepal. Dr. Wilson said that the mtDNA results, combined with the findings of South Asian DNA in the rest of the genome, meant that the evidence of Prince William's Indian heritage was "unassailable."


NOTE: Eliza had been reported as "Armenian," in other articles.

WASHINGTON MOMUMENT OPENS TODAY AFTER YEARS OF EARTHQUAKE REPAIRS

WASHINGTON POST ON WASHINGTON MOMUMENT  full article

Engineers have spent nearly 1,000 days on an extensive analysis and restoration of what was once the tallest structure in the world. A 5.8-magnitude quake in August 2011 caused widespread damage. It shook some stones loose and caused more than 150 cracks. From massive scaffolding built around the monument after the quake, engineers and stone masons made repairs stone by stone.