Prince William and Kate Middleton's relatives "lived parallel lives" as similarities between their ancestors are uncovered.
Kate’s great-great aunt, Gertrude Middleton, and William’s great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, shared a number of eerily similar stories.
They were both volunteer nurses during the First World War and were both nuns, an Australian historian recently unearthed.
Gertrude became a nun at the Anglican Convent of the Epiphany in Cornwall, while Princess Alice founded a Greek Orthodox order of nuns as they both ventured on a religious path.
But both women were also treated at a sanatorium, a facility that treated patients with mental health problems, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Kate's great-great aunt was treated at the Lawn Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases in Lincoln in the 1930s before dying at the facility in March 1942 at the age of 66.
During her life, Gertrude loved sport, including tennis, just like Kate, and lacrosse on the University of St Andrews' playing fields.
She also enjoyed playing the piano and continued her studies at St Anne’s College, Oxford, from 1900-1902.
She later worked as a social worker and was Honorary Secretary of Leeds Girls Clubs. It was here that she helped to manage the protection and sheltering of “friendless” and disadvantaged girls in the city and the wider Yorkshire area.
She then worked as a theology teacher in Leeds before the First World War broke out.
Princess Alice, meanwhile, was sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1930 and died at Buckingham Palace in 1965 at the age of 88.
After being taken to the facility, she dedicated her life to helping others and sheltered Jewish refugees during the Holocaust while also working with the poor.
Michael Reed, a historian at Ilim College in Australia who made the discovery about Kate’s ancestor, told The Daily Telegraph: "They basically lived parallel lives, a few years apart.
"Both were volunteer nurses in connection with the Red Cross – Gertrude during the First World War, and Princess Alice during the first and second."
He added: "But most startling of all was the revelation that Gertrude, like Princess Alice, had been a patient in a mental hospital. Their stories are both fascinating and sad."
The willingness to help others appears to run in Kate's family.
She previously described how her great-grandmother Olive Middleton volunteered as a Red Cross nurse during the First World War while her grandmother Valerie Middleton performed the same role during the Second World War.
A part of the 150th anniversary of the Red Cross, which coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, she wrote: “Like you and many others, they are both part of the rich history of the British Red Cross, which is helping to ensure many people get the support they need during a crisis.
“In recent months, I have been deeply moved by the work you and your colleagues have continued to do throughout the coronavirus pandemic. You have all been doing an inspiring job supporting vulnerable people.”
