Inter-Marriage and In-Breeding

[Duke of New Jersey]

What does that mean? Why are they called Ernestine Dukes, they did not all have the name Ernest

Ernestine or Saxon Dukes are dukes of Saxe-Couburg, Saxe-Altenberg, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Saalfled, Saxe-Meiningein e.t.c...  They were constantly changing their territories so if Princess X of Saxe-Y married Duke A of Saxe-B their son would be Duke E of Saxe-F but his father (and mother) would have a different name than him.  I am too confusing?  The Ernestine Duchies were constantly being divided up and then re-created so it if very confusing!

-Duke of NJ

[basilforever]

Yes you are too confusing in your example! Perhaps a real life example would be easier to follow. Okay the Ernestine Dukes are the ones with Saxe at the front

[Rudolf_II]

It seems like the ruling line is clear...except for a little alcoholism.

Really? Who in the ruling line has alcoholism? 

The sons of George V seemed to have more than a slight predilection to booze.  Edward VIII was a notorious partyer.  Albert (George VI) allegedy downed much whisky at dinner because of the pressures of WW2.  Henry (Duke of Gloucester) was apparently a notorious drunk. While George (Duke of Kent) hit the bottle hard after being initially seperated from Marina after meeting her.

Of course, this may not be genetics - rather having a loud, overbearing and hypercritical father...

[Rudolf_II]

Ernestine or Saxon Dukes are dukes of Saxe-Couburg, Saxe-Altenberg, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Saalfled, Saxe-Meiningein e.t.c...  They were constantly changing their territories so if Princess X of Saxe-Y married Duke A of Saxe-B their son would be Duke E of Saxe-F but his father (and mother) would have a different name than him.  I am too confusing?  The Ernestine Duchies were constantly being divided up and then re-created so it if very confusing!

Ah, the Ernestin Wettin Duchies.  It's less complicated when you know that all of them are directly descended from John II of Saxe-Weimar (1570-1605) and his son Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (1601-75).  They split up their territorial inheritance on the basis of relative equality rather than primogeniture.  To confuse matters, their descendants intermarried, and some realised primogeniture was the only viable way.  Thus the confusing nature of the Saxe-... lands.  The Ernestine motto should be : So much energy - so little territory.

There were only 4 duchies by the time the 1st World War ended (Coburg-Gotha, Meiningen, Altenburg and Weimar-Eisenach).  The Altenburg line is extinct, and Meiningen may be going the same way soon.

[Bernardino]

In fact both lines of Weimar-Eisenach and Meiningen's next dynastic generation have just one male (respectively Prince Georg-Konstantin of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, born 1977, and Prince Friedrich-Constantin of Saxe-Meiningen, born 1980)...

Only the Coburg and Gotha have still plenty of dynastic males around...even the royal Wettins of Saxony will go extinct in the male line in the next generation...though in the Kingdom of Saxony the male extinction was/is no problem...

[Eric_Lowe]

No more males for the Wettins of Saxony ? 

[Bernardino]

Yes...

Currently there are alive 3 dynastic (this is what I mean) Wettin males in the Royal House of Saxony:

1. Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen (b.1926), married, no issue; his brother:

2. Prince Albert (b.1934), m. morganatically, no issue; and their 1st cousin:

3. Prince Dedo (b. 1922), no issue.

They are all grand-children of the last King of Saxony, Friedrich August III.

Prince Dedo's brother Prince Timo (d. 1982) did marry 3 times, but morganatically, and left a girl and a boy, whom has in his turn 3 boys. But they're not dynasts and so as males do not belong to the royal house of Saxony, though of course they are Wettins...

The dynastic heir of the Margrave of Meissen is his nephew Prince Alexander (married to Pss Gisela of Bavaria, a descendant of Empress Sisi, with 3 boys and 1 girl as children)...He is the son of Princess Maria Anna of Saxony by her husband the late Robert de Afif, of the Lebanese (Christian) Princely House of Gessaphe...

[Duke of New Jersey]

We may not think of them as in-breeding per say but the Scandivanian Royals have mostly married each other after Christian IX. 

I couldn't find a family tree that llustrates the realtions of the House of Glucksburg-Denmark, Bernadotte, and Glucksburg-Norway in the late 19th and the 20th centuries.  I will keep on looking.

-Duke of NJ

[Eric_Lowe]

Yes...Truly wonderful. I think the Romanovs have more Wuttemberg blood than other royal houses. 

[Duke of New Jersey]

Around 1780-1850 the Danish royal family seems to have only married each other or the Hesse-Kessels (from whom they were already descended).  Has anybody else noticed how confusing that all gets! I could not understand it at all!   

Another case of inbreeding. 

-Duke of NJ

[KiKi]

I have read a few different articles where there might have been possible that Victoria may have not had the father that is listed as her father.  If that is the case, she could have gotten the hemo. from her hypathetical biological father.  I think on one of the earlier pages I read that someone touched on it.  (I have read all the pages before this one and I was also reading some other things on line so maybe I didn't read it here.)  Anyway, I think this might have been.  Her "father" her and he was pretty old at the time, so... what if, her blood issue was not due to inbreading or spontanious infection?

[Eric_Lowe]

What about Victoria not being her father's daughter ? Nonsense...She looked very Hanoverian in features, especially when she became aged. 

[lori_c]

Truly.  The "Hanoverian" feature was quite prominent and appeared quite frequently beyond QV.  It's certainly an identifiable trait.

[KiKi]

I was not saying I believed it, I was just saying, I just saw an article or a program where there was a blurb about the possibility.

Is too bad we can't trace back to see where the hemo came from.

[Rudolf_II]

Is too bad we can't trace back to see where the hemo came from.

De novo mutation. Roughly 30% of all haemophilia cases come from families with no previous history of the condition.