Shaking the family tree

Queen Elizabeth II, began her reign as Queen when her father, George VI, died young in 1952.


Queen Mary

George's mother, Queen Mary was the epitome of style and grace from 1910 to 1936 when her husband reigned. But her heritage was not quite as refined. Her father , Francis, Duke of Teck, had no succession rights, and was not accepted as a husband for princesses in most of the European royal houses.

Queen Victoria, had married Francis off to Fat Mary, his 3rd cousin once removed, who in addition to her girth was in her 30's. They lived in relative poverty building up huge debts until he died at age 62 in the year 1900. He did live long enough to see his daughter married to the 2nd son of the Prince of Wales, and he knew she would be queen someday. He also knew his young grandson would be king.

The reason Francis had no succession rights was that his mother, Countess Claudine Rhédey de Kis-Rhéde had been born in Transylvania and was not considered royal by the Germans. Claudine had a tough life which ended by her being trampled to death by a team of horses at the age of 29 in 1841.

Claudine was born only 15 miles from the birthplace of one of her distant ancestors, VLAD III, the Impaler. A total of 46 year after Claudine was trampled to death, an Irish novelist, Bram Stoker, would use VLAD III as the inspiration for his novel, Dracula.


Town of Sighişoara, birthplace of VLAD III Dracul.

So we shake the family tree of Queen Elizabeth and who do we find, but none other than Dracula!

G	Name
0	Elizabeth II
1	George VI
2	Queen Mary
3	Francis (1st Duke) of Teck
4	Claudine von Kis-Rhéde, Countess Rhedey (1812-1841)
5	Agnes (Baroness) von Incédy
6	Gregor (Baron) von Inczédy
7	Agnes von Kendeffy
8	Gáspár Kendeffy
9	Gábor Kendeffy
10	Gáspár Kendeffy
11	Vanesca Kornis
12	Borbara Bilki Dracula de Sentesti
13	Ladislas Dracula de Sentesti
14	Ladislas Dracula
15	Vlad Dracula
16	Vlad IV Tepes Dracula, prince of Wallachia (1431-1476)
17	Vlad III Dracul

Claudine is actually descended from VLAD III in three different bloodlines. Her maternal grandfather, her paternal grandfather and her paternal grandmother were all descendants. As none of the names are familiar to non Transylvanians, I only listed the shortest bloodline.

it does rather look like if she smiled we would see fangs...

The way royalty marries royalty Im not surprised... i guess on the surface it dont seem too bad, but when you dig down and look at the generatoins apon generations- its really just inbreeding over hundreds of years.

Some of the royal nicknames are great, like Vlad the Impaler and Fat Mary. Here are some other ones I like:

Æthelred the Unready

James the be-shitten

Louis the Quarreller

Henry the Impotent

Louis the Lazy

Wilfred the Hairy

Quote: Wizard

Some of the royal nicknames are great

Carlos II, The Hexed, the last of the Hapsburgs.

Carlos believed his huge number of physical and mental deficiencies were due to sorcery. Most of them were repulsive, but his inability to procreate caused the first global level conflict, The War of the Spanish Succession (called Queen Anne's War in North America).

In the two generations (up to grandparents) before Carlos, there were two uncle-niece marriages, and two cousin marriages, and several other confusing mix-ups where one of his grandmothers was also his aunt. The consanguinity coefficient was so high, the it has been scientifically calculated as being the equivalent of him being born to two full blooded siblings.

Carlos is the poster child of the genetic monster monarch that results from tight inbreeding among royalty.

======================

Britain did not have uncle/niece marriages like the continent, but here are the relationships between Henry the 8th and his wives:
Catherine Aragon 3rd cousin once removed
Anne Boleyn , 5th cousin once removed
Jane Seymour 5th cousin
Katherine Howard, 5th cousin once removed
Anne of Cleves, 5th cousin
Katherine Parr, 3rd cousin, once removed

The next 15 royal consorts after the Henry 8th who died in 1547 (up until 1936) was a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd cousin of their spouse. Finally in 1923 the future George VI married his 13th cousin (the future Queen Mum). However the present Queen Elizabeth II is both 2nd cousin once removed from Prince Philip through King Christian IX of Denmark, and 3rd cousins through Queen Victoria.

Charles almost married his 2nd cousin, but Diana was his 7th cousin once removed, and Camilla is his 11th cousin. If William married Kate Middleton and they reign it will be the first time since William the Conqueror that there is a consort and the family relationship between her and her husband is unknown. Kate has suspected relationships, but they will have to exhume bodies for DNA testing to make an exact determination, because she is pretty common.

There is no genetic disease detected among British royalty that may have been caused by inbreeding, although some suspect porphyria. Hemophilia is a genetic disease, but it is not one of the ones affected by intermarriage.

Marrying a 3rd cousin, or further apart, is not that bad. It is legal in the US to marry a second cousin in every state, and a first cousin in some of them (source). First cousins will share 1/8 the genes, just FYI. Albert Einstein married his first cousin. Here is a list of other famous wed cousins.

However, in the case Carlos the Hexed, the problems with these overlappings obviously add up. I can forgive them for not knowing about DNA, but couldn't they see from breeding dogs, horses, or farm animals that inbreeding was not a good thing?

Well, it does seem as if 300-500 years ago they were breeding all kinds of dogs and farm animals, and the basic risks should have been known. Plus, in general society uncle-niece marriages were taboo. However, you don't have to look very far in today's society for issues, even though genetic counseling is available today.

A first cousin marriage carries a risk, but in the past it was partially offset by the fact that people married very young in the past. The genetic risk to marrying your 2nd cousin is probably equivalent to the same as having a child over the age of 30-35. It has never been illegal in any state in the world to marry a 2nd cousin, but at one point it required a papal dispensation if you were Catholic. It has been suggested, based on studies in Iceland, that marrying a 3rd cousin is the closest to the ideal, because they tend to share a lot of your cultural heritage, but are not so close as to increase the probability of genetic disease.

In the UK, 55% of British Pakistani's are married to first cousins and as high as 75% in Bradford, an industrial town near York. The repeated generations of first cousin marriages. One recessive genetic illness is epidermolysis bullosa which condemns the child to an agonizing life and early death. British Pakistani's have 3% of the births, but 1/3 of the recessive genetic disorders.

The last wedding in the British royal family between first cousins once removed was in 1913. By that point, the fundamental of genetics were well understood. Prince Arthur of Connaught and Strathearn married Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife who only died in 1959. Their only child, Alastair Arthur Windsor was 13th in line for the throne at the age of 28 when he died of hypothermia by falling asleep under an open window in winter. This accident occurred in Rideau Hall, the governor general's palace in Canada in 1943.

A blogger from Egypt once sent me an e-mail that said Alastair had fathered a child in 1939 (at the age of 25) by an Egyptian woman while he was stationed there. He sent notes to the mother that said that he wanted to marry her, but then died a few weeks later. The blogger was the great grandchild (or grandchild) of that illegitimate child. He supposedly had letters and other documents, but was frustrated in his attempts to have the relationship widely recognized.

And another family tree that leads from Edward I, Longshanks (from movie Braveheart) to QEII and Barack Obama

0	Edward I Longshanks Plantagenêt, King of England 1239-1307
1	Elizabeth Plantagenêt 1282-1316
2	William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton ca 1311-1360
3	Elisabeth de Bohun ca 1350-1385
4	Elizabeth Fitzalan 1366-1425
5	Joan Goushill
6	Catherine Stanley m. Sir John Savage	Elizabeth Stanley m. Sir Richard Molyneux
7	Dulcia Savage	Joan Molyneux
8	Maud Bold	Elizabeth Preston
9	Jennet Gerard	Richard Nugent, lord Delvin
10	William Eltonhead	Christopher Nugent
11	Richard Eltonhead	Richard Nugent, lord Delvin
12	Martha Eltonhead (immigrated to VA)	Christopher Nugent, lord Delvin
13	Eltonhead Conway m. Henry Thacker	Mabel Nugent
14	Martha Thacker	Diarmaid O'Brien, Baron Inchiquin
15	Edwin Hickman	Mary O'Brien
16	James Hickman	Eleanor Boyle
17	Susannah Hickman	Michael Hill
18	Annie Browning	Arthur Hill-Trevor, Viscount of Dungannon
19	George Washington Overall	Anne Hill-Trevor
20	Susan Catherine Overall	Richard, Marquess Wellesley
21	Gabriella Clark	Anne Wellesley
22	Ruth Lucille Armour	Charles Cavendish-Bentinck
23	Stanley Armour Dunham	Cecilia Nina Cavendish-Bentinck
24	Ann Dunham	Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
25	Barack Obama	Elizabeth II Windsor, Queen of Great Britain

The sisters Catherine Stanley, and Elizabeth Stanley (generation 6) had a brother, Thomas Stanley (the first Earl of Derby). He was the step father to Henry 7th, and a distant ancestor of Frederick Stanley (16th Earl of Derby), the politician and sportsman who donated the Stanley Cup to the winner of a Canadian amateur hockey league in 1892.

Martha Eltonhead is also the great great grandmother of President James Madison

Martha Eltonhead

Edwin Conway

Francis Conway

Eleanore Rose Conway

James Madison