8. There are no living descendants of Shakespeare

One might take keen interest in Shakespeare’s ancestry. You might want to know about the decedents of Shakespeare; who might be great playwrights, novelists, poets, actors, directors… but that is wishful dreaming. No direct descendants of Shakespeare are alive today. Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway had three children. Why then, the bloodline of Shakespeare discontinued?

PHOTO: Shakespeares-sonnets

Hamnet his only son died when he was 11, as you can expect there were no descendants of him. Shakespeare’s other two children had better luck. Susanna married and had a daughter. His daughter Elizabeth married twice but had no children of her own. Judith, the youngest of the siblings, married and had three children, all of them died unmarried and before Judith – so that was that.

Some people suggest he may have fathered illegitimate children, but let’s leave that debate for another time. Shall we?