A Royal Family Network-Tree
An interactive piece of history, following royal ancestry lines
I always wondered about my ancestors. Dreamed they had amazing backgrounds and relations. I gathered a bit of information about my great-grandparents, but as with all cool things in life, there is a lot of mystery surrounding their lives. I have not had the opportunity to trace my family, and in the absence of this information, I focused my attention on well-known family trees. Royal families were there, for me to study.
I used to examine the family of Queen Victoria and how she arranged the marriages of all her children with Europe’s nobility. I would scrutinize this black and white genealogy tree, in our Larousse Encyclopedia. I cannot remember much of what it was on it. Furthermore, I just remember wanting to see more into their past and future. Find more royal family members, and how interrelated they were. I always understood the relationships of Henry VIII, and Queen Elizabeth I, and their main role in history. But every time I read something related to British history, watched a documentary, watched a miniseries, or a movie. Some key monarch was mentioned. Who were they? How were they related? Games of Thrones was inspired by the War of Roses. What was going on with English Nobility then? The way family bloodlines work surprises someone grown in a modern Democracy but are still captivating. Besides, family trees are a valuable connection with history.
Is it genetics and bloodlines that make people fascinating? Is it just upbringing? Intriguing bloodline connections are not limited to Nobility. Paul Gauguin, the influential Post-impressionist artist, was the grandson of Flora Tristan. Peruvian socialist activist, and feminist. How about Virginia Woolf, an innovative writer of the 20th century, was niece to celebrated photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, just to name little-known examples. Chinese and Icelandic colleagues told me they could trace their ancestors several centuries. So it is not a recent fad. It is not just Americans tracing roots to Europe. There is more behind genealogy than what meets the eye, and I wanted to contribute to it.
Genealogy research is not just to show off your lineage and family relations. Pedigrees are quite a useful tool, they help determine the likelihood of a hereditary disease such as Hemophilia (back to Queen Victoria’s descendants as a case), or color blindness. Being born in Colombia, I was surprised to read the story of the Lopera family. Scientists traced back their family tree 350 years, to see how early Alzheimer’s affected up to 5000 of its living descendants. So genealogy definitely has a modern purpose.
Looking into famous monarchs and their relatives is fascinating. Following their bloodlines on trees is difficult. Kings do not always have children that become kings. Traditional family trees tend to come from one male to the next. Usually ignoring the spouse (Look left for Children of Henry II). It is like they reproduce by parthenogenesis. Their spouses got there for a reason, for their connections, for their ability to stay next to power, for their ambition, cleverness, and maybe even for their looks. Siblings have an important role as well. They support a monarch, or they marry another foreign royal. If there is more than one spouse, don’t even mention it. The tree cannot handle it.
That is not all that is wrong with family trees. They are not trees. It is not a trunk that divides in two and in two again. Those branches eventually cross. Nobility members love marrying each other. It is like their blue blood gets bluer with each marriage. Inbreeding might be well known for royals like the Habsburgs, but it is not limited to them. (See Charles II family tree). Looking into intermarriages, I was surprised to find you could measure how inbred a royal is. This is not restricted to Nobility. In small villages, people were more likely to marry a cousin, than it is today. These bloodline crossings are interesting and difficult to display in traditional trees. Family trees are not trees. They are networks, and I was sure I would make one to show how their lines interlink.
There are beautiful overworked medieval family trees, there are sterile black and white encyclopedia-type family trees, and there are modern ones with portrait pictures. Looking into royal genealogy, those with pictures of current royals are quite common. I am a visual learner, and images definitely make them easier to remember and follow. But they can only show so many royals and connections before the space runs out.
I wanted to make a family network tree for a while, and I finally had the skills to do an interactive one! I found inspiration on this Simpsons Family Tree by Bryony Miles, made with D3.js. I found the code I could use in a post from Stackoverflow. I could display the tree as a network! Extra information such as who was crowned, or which House they belonged to was possible as well. I could differentiate sibling connections from marriages. The viewer could focus on one member and get extra information, such as birth, death date, and other names given. The network could be zoomable, so the viewer could follow family lines easier. So much depth in one family network tree, it was amazing.
As mentioned before, tracing British royals was not easy. Since there are so many lines and so many members, I focused on the most prominent names. That is crowned royals and their spouses. Connections with other European crowned royals and ancestors of future British royals were also key. I used Useful Charts videos, British Royals Trees, and Wikipedia for reference.
The Wessex Family was particularly hard to trace. Saxon denominations are not easy to read or write. Names like Ethelred and Athelstan are written in old English. Parents and siblings tend to have the same name. If you don’t trace their names with birthdates or death dates, it is very hard to be sure who is who. I included as many members as possible during the War of Roses. Many references were required to make sure I included key members. This was important, even though they were one interconnected family, this did not stop them from staying at war.
Tudor family was heartbreaking to depict, so many children did not make it to adulthood. There is a long line of Stewarts and Stuarts from Scotland that did not make the cut. There was very little information on them, and it made the network-tree hard to manage while interacting. Very few family members were available. So I just removed most of them and left those directly connected with the English crown.
Queen Victoria married her cousin, and her descendants intermarried as well. I tried to keep up with their German royal side. There are so many German houses. Their names are slightly different, but apparently different lines. This is where the network tree tangles the most, but it is still understandable. At this point, I did not try to trace Lady Di’s royal ancestors. I believe the network tree is just right. I hope you enjoy it, as much as I did making it! Next in line is Spanish Monarchy!
