Kate Middleton and the Sense and Sensibility author Jane Austen are distant cousins. Family history website Ancestry.com.au has revealed Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, and Austen, best known for her novels focusing on lower gentry or middle class women and their romantic interactions with men of higher rank and wealth, are related through their common ancestor Henry Percy, the 2nd Earl of Northumberland.

Percy, who lived in the first half of the 15th century, is Kate’s 16th great-grandfather and Jane Austen’s 10th great-grandfather, making them 11th cousins, six times removed. The ancestor who connects Catherine and Jane, was born in 1392 at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. He was a 2nd great-grandson of King Edward III – meaning that King Edward is also a distant great-grandfather of Catherine Middleton.

“From one of the world’s most newest, but nevertheless most popular public figures to one of the world’s best-loved authors, it’s exciting to find an ancestral link between the Duchess of Cambridge and Jane Austen. In many ways, Catherine Middleton is a modern Jane Austen heroine; a middle class girl who falls in love and marries the future King of England,” said Brad Argent, content director, Ancestry.com.au.

“Jane Austen may have written about living happily-ever-after but it seems Catherine has found a real non-fiction hero to spend her life with, far past the epilogue.”

Throughout her life, Jane Austen’s best friend and strongest supporter was her elder sister Cassandra. In fact, when Cassandra was sent off to boarding school at age 10in 1783, eight-year-old Jane refused to be separated from her sister, demanding to go also.

The close relationship between the Austen sisters is easily comparable to the bond Catherine shares with her younger sister Pippa, whoserved as Catherine’s maid of honor at her recent wedding, attended the same boarding school as her older sister and then followed her to Scotland to college.

While all her novels conclude with a happy marriage between the heroine and her hero, neither Jane nor Cassandra ever married. There is however every expectation that Pippa will follow her sister’s example and marry her own prince charming.