decent of house of hurin

[Faramir Jones]

There might have been other descendants of Elros who left Númenor before it perished, apart from Elendil and his immediate family. The candidates are those of the family of the Princes of Dol Amroth. According to endnote 39 in the story 'Cirion and Eorl' in Unfinished Tales, when the then Prince of Dol Amroth was mentioned, Tolkien says that the title was given to the Lords of Dol Amroth by Elendil

with whom they had kinship. They were a family of the Faithful who had sailed from Númenor before the Downfall and had settled in the land of Belfalas...with a stronghold upon the high promontory of Dol Amroth.

It's reasonable to say that this family were cousins of Elendil, and possible that they shared a common descent from Elros. It's interesting that even if this was the case, there was no suggestion that, when Gondor's throne was vacant, they should become kings. It appears that an eligible candidate for the throne had to be, first and foremost, a direct descendant of Elendil.

While there is no evidence given, it is possible that in the ships in which Elendil and his followers escaped the Downfall, there were also cousins of his. Perhaps one was Húrin’s ancestor, which is one explanation for the Stewards being ''ultimately of royal origin', though not directly descended from Elendil.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

There might have been other descendants of Elros who left Númenor before it perished, apart from Elendil and his immediate family. The candidates are those of the family of the Princes of Dol Amroth. According to endnote 39 in the story 'Cirion and Eorl' in Unfinished Tales, when the then Prince of Dol Amroth was mentioned, Tolkien says that the title was given to the Lords of Dol Amroth by Elendil

with whom they had kinship. They were a family of the Faithful who had sailed from Númenor before the Downfall and had settled in the land of Belfalas...with a stronghold upon the high promontory of Dol Amroth.

It's reasonable to say that this family were cousins of Elendil, and possible that they shared a common descent from Elros. It's interesting that even if this was the case, there was no suggestion that, when Gondor's throne was vacant, they should become kings. It appears that an eligible candidate for the throne had to be, first and foremost, a direct descendant of Elendil.

Of course, the "kinship" here referenced could be the same by which Imrahil was Denethor's "kinsman": by marriage (Denethor's wife was Imrahil's sister).


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It's also worth noting that here as in so many places T couldn't make up his mind, or at least left contradictory accounts; in another version the first Prince of Dol Amroth was Galador, son of Imrazor and Mithrellas, born almost 2000 years after Elendil's time. (Note also the anachronism of the title "Prince of Dol Amroth" prior to that time, although it's an understandable later usage in the same way one sometimes sees Habsburgs prior to 1806 called "Austrian Emperors.")