Family Tree - How is Nicholas related to Queen Victoria?

[TimM]

That's probably how the hemophilia got passed down, all the inbreeding.  It was a genetic mutation of sorts.

[Alixz]

Actually Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were first cousins, too.

[TimM]

So if even one of them had genetic defect, it could have been passed down through the line, as the hemophilia was.   If they had married outside the line, perhaps Alexei would not have been so sick.

Of course, I'm guessing here.  I'm no geneticist.

[Alixz]

Mostly historians think that it was a mutation.  It seemed to show up in Victoria's lines and then disappear after her grandchildren.  (I think that was the last time it was validated - I don't think that any of her numerous great grand children had it.

[historyfan]

Alexei was a great-grandchild of Victoria.  So were Ena of Spain's two sons.

I don't think there is much, if any, evidence of it after that generation.

[Kalafrana]

Haemophilia tends to 'breed out' or used to until treatments like Factor VIII became available, because few haemophiliacs lived long enough to father children. The only royal haemophiliac that I'm aware of who had children was Leopold of Albany. His daughter, Alice of Athlone, was inevitably a carrier and her elder son, Rupert, Viscount Trematon, was haemophiliac and died as the result of a road accident when a student at Oxford. Her daughter, Lady May Abel Smith, has a good many desendants, but seems not to have been a carrier.

Ann

[Alixz]

I think that what we were saying, though, is that with all of the cousinly marriages in Victoria's line, it is surprising that the hemophilia did breed out.  Although a descendant of Victoria who was a carrier (as far as I know) never married a cousin who had the disease.

historyfan - you said what I meant.  It was after the great grand children.  It had to be as so many of the granddaughters were carriers and no one would know which ones until they had children.

However, did any of the great granddaughters carry the disease and then the great great grand children would have had the disease?

For example Princess Alice was a carrier.  Two of her daughters Alix and Irene were carriers.  No one knows about Ella as she had no children. No one knows about OTMA as they never had children.  But did any of Irene's (grand daughter level) daughters (great grand daughter level) carry the gene?  Did any of these women of the great grand daughter level have hemophiliac sons or daughters who were carriers?

I don't read much about the German royal house, but Irene married Heinrich of Prussia, brother of Kaiser Wilhelm.

[Kalafrana]

Irene of Hesse and Heinrich of Prussia had three sons. Two were haemophliac and  died childless (the elder, Waldemar, lived to 56 and married but had no children). The other, Sigismund of Prussia, was not a haemophiliac so was a genetic 'dead end' for the haemophilia gene.

Irene and Heinrich had no daughters (probably a good thing, in practice). Having two haemophiliac sons (the second died at four) must have been a lot to cope with.

Ann

[Alixz]

What about Ena's children?  I know that the sons had the disease but what about the daughters.  Were they carriers?

Alfonso and Ena had seven children:

Infante Alfonso Pio Cristino Eduardo Francisco Guillermo Carlos Enrique Fernando Antonio Venancio of Spain, Prince of Asturias (1907–1938), a hemophiliac, he renounced his rights to the throne in 1933 to marry a commoner, Edelmira Ignacia Adriana Sampedro-Robato, and became Count of Covadonga. He later remarried to Marta Esther Rocafort y Altazarra, but had no issue by either of them.

Infante Jaime Luitpold Isabelino Enrique Alberto Alfonso Victor Acacio Pedro Maria of Spain (1908–1975), a deaf-mute as the result of a childhood operation, he renounced his rights to the throne in 1933 and became Duke of Segovia, and later Duke of Madrid, and who, as a legitimist pretender to the French throne from 1941 to 1975, was known as the Duke of Anjou.

Infanta Beatríz Isabela Federica Alfonsa Eugenia Cristina Maria Teresa Bienvenida Ladisláa of Spain (1909–2002), who married Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi.

Infante Fernando, stillborn (1910)

Infanta Maria Cristina Teresa Alejandra Guadalupe Maria de la Concepción Vittoria Eugenia of Spain (1911–1996), who married Enrico Eugenio Marone-Cinzano, 1st Conte di Marone.

Infante Juan Carlos Teresa Silvestre Alfonso of Spain (1913–1993), named heir to the throne and Count of Barcelona, whose son is the current King, Juan Carlos I of Spain.

Infante Gonzalo Manuel Maria Bernardo Narciso Alfonso Mauricio of Spain (1914–1934), a hemophiliac, like his elder brother Alfonso. He died due to bleeding from injuries suffered in a car crash.

[Kalafrana]

Did either of Ena's daughters have children?

[Alixz]

I don't know, but I do have Maureen Eilers's book on Queen Victoria's Descendants so I will have to take a look.

[LisaDavidson]

Regarding 1st cousin marriages - it's not true that these marriages are illegal in the US. About half of the 50 states allow them. Some states restrict the marriages to 1st cousins who are unlikely to produce children, and some restrict to adoptees. (IOW, an adoptee could marry his/her 1st cousin because there would be no blood relation).

Regarding hemophilia being attributed to cousin marriages, this is simply false. It's a commonly held belief, even though it's not factual.

Another myth is inbreeding amongst royal families. I am rather new to studying my own genealogy, but European royals and nobles are nor significantly more inbred than other ethnic groups. It is again, a commonly held belief as opposed to a fact.

This does not mean there were not cases of inbreeding in certain families - such as the Hapsburgs. If you study enough royal lines, you will find as I did that many old families married spouses from other territories, thus keeping the bloodlines highly diverse,

[Kalafrana]

First cousin marriages are legal under UK civil law and permitted by the Church of England. The Catholic Church frowns on them, however, and a dispensation is required.

First cousin marriages do not significantly increase the risk of haemophilia because it only takes one copy of the gene to make a male a hamophiliac or a female a carrier, so inheritance from one parent is enough. Where there is a potential danger is in disorders where two copies of the gene are required, one from each parent - the obvious example is cystic fibrosis. There has been a fair amount of comment recently in the British press on the high incidence of genetic disorders among Asian groups where repeated first cousin marriage over several generations is common (as among the Spanish Habsburgs).

However, that's not to say that first cousin marriages do not meet with disapproval. My maternal grandparents were first cousins and concealed the fact from their own children! I only discovered this while working on the family history long after their deaths.

Ann

[allanraymond]

Ena's two daughters had four children each.

Allan Raymond

Did either of Ena's daughters have children?

[Kalafrana]

Presumably none of the children of Ena's daughters was haemophiliac, or we'd have heard about it. They were lucky.

Ann