Background
Laura Williamina Seymour was a daughter of Admiral Sir George Seymour and his wife, Georgiana Berkeley, a granddaughter of the 4th Earl of Berkeley and a great-granddaughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond. Paternally, she descended in unbroken male line from the Seymours (originally, Street Maur) who belonged to the gentry of the 12th century, acquired considerable landed wealth by the marriage of Sir Roger de Saint Maur to the baronial co-heiress Cecily Berkeley, and were ennobled in 1536 as Viscounts Beauchamp. Laura"s direct ancestor, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, was the eldest brother of Henry VIII"s queen consort, Jane Seymour, and had himself declared Lord Protector of England during the minority of their son, King Edward VI. The Dukedom of Somerset and the Marquessate of Hertford, eventually devolved upon her branch of the Seymour family.
Laura Seymour descended four times from Charles I of England (although severed from the Royal Family by bars sinister), and she was an eighth cousin of her husband"s, with whom she shared multiple descents from King Frederick II of Denmark.