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Sarah Ferguson

British writer, charity patron, public speaker, film producer and television personality, and former Duchess of York

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ55720
Source-derived summary

Sarah Margaret Ferguson (born 15 October 1959), formerly Sarah, Duchess of York, and commonly known as Fergie, is a British author, spokesperson, and television personality. She is the ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who is the second son of Queen Elizabeth II and the younger brother of King Charles III.

Ferguson grew up in Dummer, Hampshire, and attended the Queen's Secretarial College. She later worked for public relations firms in London and for a publishing company. She began a relationship with Andrew in 1985, and they were married on 23 July 1986 at Westminster Abbey, upon which she became Duchess of York. They have two daughters: Beatrice and Eugenie. Their marriage, separation in 1992, and divorce in 1996 attracted extensive media coverage.

Both during and after her marriage, Ferguson has been involved with several charities, primarily focused on supporting cancer patients and children. She was the patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust from 1990 to 2025 and founded Children in Crisis and Sarah's Trust. She has written several books for children and adults, and has worked on TV and film production.

In the years following her divorce, Ferguson was the subject of various scandals that affected her relationship with the royal family.

Editorial summary

“Sarah Ferguson” enters the record as british writer, charity patron, public speaker, film producer and television personality, and former Duchess of York. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sarah, Ferguson and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1959, 1985, 1986, 1992—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1959-10-15. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Sarah, Ferguson and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Sarah Ferguson” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sarah, Ferguson and British provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55720. VIAF identifies the subject as 41953880. The Library of Congress control number is n86101487. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1959, 1985, 1986 and 1992.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Sarah Ferguson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Sarah Ferguson primary sources, Sarah Ferguson archive and Sarah research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sarah Ferguson”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Sarah Ferguson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.