Family Ties: Kate Middleton Related To Jane Austen

Prince William's bride, Kate Middleton, can add another famous name to her family tree. The Duchess of Cambridge is related to English romance writer Jane Austen, according to Ancestry.com.

Lead historian for the genealogy website, Anastasia Harman, says that the incredible finding links Middleton and Austen as distant eleventh cousins, six times removed.

"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," Harman told People. "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."

Middlteon and Austen's common relative is Henry Percy, who was appointed as the second Earl of Northumberland in 1416. Ironically, Middleton's younger sister, Pippa Middleton, was recently linked to George Percy, the son of the current Duke of Northumberland. Go figure.

Austen is best known for her seventeenth-century works about romance and social ranking in old England, including Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. She isn't Middleton's only celebrity relative though. In February of this year, talk show host, comedienne and actress Ellen DeGeneres received news that she too, was part of the royal family. The New England Genealogical Society informed Degeneres that she and Middleton are fifteenth cousins, linked through a Sir Thomas Fairfax and Agnes Gascoigne.