Oldest Royal and Noble Families


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It is not so straitghtforward to tell which reigning royal house is the oldest.

The Windsors for example trace their immediate ancestry to the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain in the early 18th century. However, the Hanoverians also descend from the Stuarts, who in turn descend from the Tudors, who in turn descend from the Plantagenets all the way back to William the Conqueror. One might say then that, including collateral and female lines, Queen Elizabeth II is part of a family tree dating back to 1066. Likewise, the Spanish Bourbons, through their French ancestors (King Philip V was a grandson of Louis XIV), can trace their roots all the way back to Hugh Capet, the first King of France who lived between 941 and 996, even though they have been in the Spanish throne properly only since the early 18th century.

In fact, even the royal houses of the "new monarchies" of the 19th century, e.g. Belgium and the Netherlands, are actually older than they look at first impression. There have been only seven "Kings of the Netherlands" (since 1815), but the Dutch house of Orange-Nassau is much older than the Kingdom of the Netherlands per se, dating back at least to the 16th century and, since then, the family has been closely associated with Dutch history (as any visitor to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will immediately notice). Likewise, there have been only seven "Kings of the Belgians" (since 1831), but the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ancestors of King Leopold I had been rulers in Saxony long before the Kingdom of Belgium was created.

I guess the only European royals that can't claim a long dynastic tree pre-dating the 19th century are actually the Swedish Bernadottes, who are truly of commoner ancestry. Nevertheless, even in that case, through the marriage of King Gustav V with Victoria of Baden, his descendants , including the current king Carl XVI Gustaf, became matrilineally related to the old Vasa dynasty and, therefore, related to a royal line dating back to the Middle Ages.

I guess that the Danish royal familiy may be the oldest (patrineally ?) , but I don't see their ancestral claims as far superior than those of other European royal houses, particularly the major ones like the Bourbons.
 
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what royal/noble families have the oldest traceable ancesty.also is the massimo descent from an ancient roman general(maximus i believe) genuine.i find this fascinating so any info or input is much appreciated.

i forgot to mention that it does not matter wheather it is male or female line descent.

hi. let me start by saying that i have already asked this question in a different part of this forum,but recieved no reply. what royal/noble families have the oldest traceable lineage. also are the roman descents of the massimo, orsiniand antici-matei(sorry about the spelling)families genuine.thanks in advance.


By the by, if anyone is interested I would happily produce the family tree that outlines the genealogical connection between "Adam and Eve" and the current House of Lords nobles of the Erskine family, who are Pictish.
 
much of early pictish royalty is mythical... thus a non-factor here
 
much of early pictish royalty is mythical... thus a non-factor here

Just because the Irish or the British aren't the source of information doesn't mean it's "mythical". To say so is borderline slander. The earliest king reported by our enemies at the time, the Gaels, was in the 6th century, which definitively and historical establish their kingdom well before most of the bloodlines mentioned. Nonfactor indeed.
 
6th century ad is not a problem. when early kings are reported to have 80-100 year reigns consistently as sevaral of the first pictish kings have enters the realm of myth. time period, I believe these began around 1000 bc. Ireland has another problem with those attaching its royal family to judaea which I consider an early modern myth
 
6th century ad is not a problem. when early kings are reported to have 80-100 year reigns consistently as sevaral of the first pictish kings have enters the realm of myth. time period, I believe these began around 1000 bc. Ireland has another problem with those attaching its royal family to judaea which I consider an early modern myth

There is conjecture that the time periods of these reigns aren't meant to be interpreted as literal years, but that the numbers had significant meaning to the Picts. What that meaning is I couldn't say.

For a similar reason, I also agree that most of these supposed genealogical connections to judaea (Noah, in particular), are in fact mythical. However, it's interesting to see where there is some overlapping with fact.

The Romans (Tacitus) recorded the Battle of Mon Grapus in 84 AD, against the Picts, lead by Calgacus (a roman assigned name). Hadrian's wall which was built subsequently still stands to this day. This to me suggests that the Pictish kingdom was already established by this time, or certainly they were an organized people as they remained one of the only peoples in the area to remain unconquered by the Roman Legion.

This battle likely took place in Aberdeenshire, where my ancestors came from. There are also several Pictish Stones in this area, many of which predate the introduction of Christianity to the area. On these stones are Ogham markings, a form of writing. We do not know what these markings mean. The Pictish language was thought to have only been verbal, but clearly it wasn't, the meaning is simply unknown (or maybe only know by a very select few).

I'm inclined to believe that any connection to Judaea and "Adam and Eve" is mythical. The Christian's used all their might and fury to convert the peoples of the British Isles. Saint Columba, who converted the Pictish King in the 6th century (hmm...so this is why this is the accepted date their kingdom was established), also recorded the first sighting of the Loch Ness monster, and that the Picts had druids as their priest class. Supposedly, Columba even had a magical duel with the King's head druid, and converted them all by overpowering the druid with his magic.

Myth? Yes.
Christian writing? yes.
Our only fully interpreted source of information? Sadly.

If we could only read Ogham and understand the Pictish language, I'm sure there would be a lot more light shed on the topic.
 
I thought ogham could be transliterated?one can find ogham fonts online... I also believe i have heard pictish could be translated.or, are these guesses?
 
There are many theories, but very little consensus, and I haven't seen anything near what would be a full translations or understanding of the markings. The fonts online are generally used by people who revere the markings, and have assigned them to a alphabet, but not an actual translation.
 
One ancient line of descent which is believed to be the oldest in the world is that of the Dukes Yansheng, descendants in the male line from the philosopher Confucius living between 551-479 BC. He himself was a descendant of the Zhang dynasty and the Lords of Song which would make his ancestry traceable back to at least around 1000 BC. Living today he has offspring in the 83d generation.


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Are there any notable Welsh families who can trace their lineage before the English conquest of Wales?
 
shang dynasty was established around 1600 bc. by 1000 bc it had been overthrown by the zhou. the latter's founder appointed a shang dynasty prince, duke of song
 
Elizabeth II can trace her lines back to semi legendary figures such as Cedric of Wessex and Fergus Mor of Dal Riata. Both are supposed to have lived in the early 6th century.
 
Elizabeth II can trace her lines back to semi legendary figures such as Cedric of Wessex and Fergus Mor of Dal Riata. Both are supposed to have lived in the early 6th century.

This thread is not about tracing back ancestors, it is about the oldest royal or noble families.

Queen Elizabeth is the last from her ancestral House of Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (the British branch is renamed "Windsor") on the throne. After her, a scion of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg will sit on the throne.

United Kingdom
Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (1825), known as "Windsor", branch of Wettin (around 1000)
successor: Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, known as "Windsor" (around 1100)

Belgium
Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (1825), known as "of Belgium", branch of Wettin (around 1000)

Netherlands
Von Amsberg, known as "Orange-Nassau" (assumed nobility since 1795, formalized 1891)

Denmark
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1100), kown as "of Denmark"
Successor: De Laborde de Montpezat (assumed nobility since 1650), known as "of Denmark"

Norway
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1100), known as "of Norway"

Sweden
Bernadotte (1806)

Luxembourg
Bourbon-Parma (1731), known as "Nassau", branch of Capet (around 950)

Spain
Borbón (1700), branch of Capet (around 950)

Monaco
De Chalencon de Polignac (1349), known as "Grimaldi"

Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein (around 1130)
 
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This thread is not about tracing back ancestors, it is about the oldest royal or noble families.

Queen Elizabeth is the last from her ancestral House of Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (the British branch is renamed "Windsor") on the throne. After her, a scion of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg will sit on the throne.

The House of Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha was grounded in 1825, as a branch of the House of Wettin (first named around 1000).

The House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg was grounded in 1825, as a branch of the House of Oldenburg (first named in 1108).

So true...we are discussing here male line dynasties descent...
 
Funny I thought the opening post said it didn't matter if male or female lines and mentioned ancestors. I must of miss understood

It's ok I'll just go back to lurking again
 
Funny I thought the opening post said it didn't matter if male or female lines and mentioned ancestors. I must of miss understood

It's ok I'll just go back to lurking again

Well, a royal or a noble House usually becomes extinct with the death of the last legitimate male agnate. In aristocrat Houses still the procreation goes via legitimate male descendants only. In royal Houses the succession has become gender-neutral, since then the succession indeed can result in another House taking over.

With Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, the last legitimate Orange-Nassau agnate died. The House of Mecklenburg-Schwerin came on the throne with her daughter Queen Juliana.

As Queen Juliana herself was a female, the House zur Lippe-Biesterfeld came on the throne with her daughter Queen Beatrix.

Since Queen Beatrix herself is a female, the aristocrat family Von Amsberg came on the throne with her son King Willem-Alexander.

Since the King has only daughters, the Von Amsberg intermezzo will last only two generations, unless Princess Amalia marries another Von Amsberg, of course, or something horrible must happen so that Claus-Casimir van Oranje-Nassau van Amsberg (cousin of the three Princesses) becomes a heir presumptive.

:)
 
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The Netherlands isn't the House of Von Amsberg, not will Charles reign as a Glucksburg. The Netherlands is the House of Orange and Charles belongs to the House of Windsor.

Talk about ancestors is different but this thread discusses both male and female line
 
Funny I thought the opening post said it didn't matter if male or female lines and mentioned ancestors. I must of miss understood

It's ok I'll just go back to lurking again


The opening post does say male or female
 
The Netherlands isn't the House of Von Amsberg, not will Charles reign as a Glucksburg. The Netherlands is the House of Orange and Charles belongs to the House of Windsor.

Talk about ancestors is different but this thread discusses both male and female line

I disagree. It is about the oldest royal or noble houses. If we go your way, this means that never any royal or noble house can become extinct anymore unless there is really no any descendant, male or female, left.

The House of Orange-Nassau became extinct with the death of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, in 1962.

The House of Nassau became partly extinct with the death of Grand-Duchess Charlotte in 1985. Partly, because there is still a morganatic branch alive, known under the name Von Merenberg, which will become extinct with the last Von Merenberg (Nassau) indeed:

Nicholas Prince of Nassau (1832-1905)
x Natalia Alexandrovna Countess Pushkina (1836-1913)
= Georg Nicholas of Nassau, created Graf von Merenberg

Georg Nikolaus Graf von Merenberg (1873-1925)
x Olga Alexandrovna Romanova, created Princess Yurievskaya (1873-1925)
= Georg Graf von Merenberg

Georg Graf von Merenberg (1897-1965)
x Elisabeth Anne Müller-Uri (1903-1963)
= Clotilde Elisabeth Freifrau von Rintelen née Gräfin von Merenberg (1941)

Picture: the last Nassau agnate, decorated with a Russian Order. As (great) granddaughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia resp. of Alexander Sergeyevich Count Pushkin (widely seen as Russia's greatest writer, playwright and poet ever) she has strong Russian ties.
 
You may disagree but the law does not. I can follow your logic, which btw would also make the houses of Habsburg and Romanov extinct, but it is not consistant. Why are laws not valid here why you deem them valid when discussing the French succession.
 
Looking back at the original post that started this thread, back in 2004, it actually does post multiple questions: which are the oldest houses/monarchies, dynastically speaking (which is what folks are getting at with the male line answers and house names) AND whose ancestry can be traced back the farthest. The dynastic lineage is of course the most common way to look at how far back a particular institution has lasted, but looking at ancestry in a more general way can also paint a fascinating picture of just how interconnected these monarchies have been for centuries. Surely there's room for that conversation, too, especially since the original post asked for it?
 
The Netherlands isn't the House of Von Amsberg, not will Charles reign as a Glucksburg. The Netherlands is the House of Orange and Charles belongs to the House of Windsor.

Talk about ancestors is different but this thread discusses both male and female line

The thread title is oldest royal and noble families. One family is considered by male agnates...if a female was transmitter of the family,no royal and noble family would ever die out.

If a woman succeeds it's a start of a different family.

So, here we discuss oldest noble and royal families,which means unbroken male line,as that determines noble families in general and determines how old the family is.

Simple.
 
The thread title is oldest royal and noble families. One family is considered by male agnates...if a female was transmitter of the family,no royal and noble family would ever die out.

If a woman succeeds it's a start of a different family.

So, here we discuss oldest noble and royal families,which means unbroken male line,as that determines noble families in general and determines how old the family is.

Simple.

Indeed. The fact that the British monarchs were Tudor, Stuart, Orange-Nassau, Hannover, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha shows that it was the male descendance which determined the dynasty. Otherwise we can claim Elizabeth II is a Hannover... There are still Hannovers. But not on the British throne because Victoria's descendants, under them the current Queen, are Von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, after WWII renamed into "Windsor".
 
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You may disagree but the law does not. I can follow your logic, which btw would also make the houses of Habsburg and Romanov extinct, but it is not consistant. Why are laws not valid here why you deem them valid when discussing the French succession.

What is normally done in those cases is to use a hyphenated name indicating both the paternal and maternal houses, e.g. Habsburg-Lorraine, Braganza-Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Orléans-Braganza, etc. Likewise, the descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip could be technically referred to as the House of Mountbatten-Windsor.


In Sweden, they circumvented that problem by having Daniel take the family name Bernadotte so that his children could inherit the name in paternal line.
 
That's absurd. Women don't mean it's a new family, it's just a new House.

Saying that the British Royal Family isn't an unbroken line because of female inheritance is absurd. The BRF traces it's claim to William the Conqueror. Queen Elizabeth II is the direct descendant of William the Conqueror.

Depending on how you want to argue it, the BRF is an unbroken line going back to either George I (owing to close relationship to the previous monarch), William III and Mary II (owing to no usurpations since then), Charles II (owing to the Civil War then restoration), or William the Conqueror (owing to the fact that every monarch since has been his descendant).
 
That's absurd. Women don't mean it's a new family, it's just a new House.

Saying that the British Royal Family isn't an unbroken line because of female inheritance is absurd. The BRF traces it's claim to William the Conqueror. Queen Elizabeth II is the direct descendant of William the Conqueror.

Depending on how you want to argue it, the BRF is an unbroken line going back to either George I (owing to close relationship to the previous monarch), William III and Mary II (owing to no usurpations since then), Charles II (owing to the Civil War then restoration), or William the Conqueror (owing to the fact that every monarch since has been his descendant).

No one argues that the British monarchs do not have a long line, possibly going back to William the Conqueror (we have no DNA-proof of swapped babies, or children from extramarital affaires assumed to be a natural son of the monarch, etc.).

But the point is about the Houses in the traditional meaning of the word. For an example, it is generally assumed that the famous House De' Medici became extinct in 1737. There is no doubt that there are people who carry the mitochondrial DNA of the Medici's or descent from a collateral branch but the House became extinct.

Another example, the House of Borgia became extinct in 1748. The current Duke of Parma, Prince Carlos de Bourbon de Parme, has Borgia blood via his grandmother Marie-Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset. After the death of Henri III de France without succession, there were several candidates for the throne of France: Henri III de Navarre, the Cardinal Charles de Borbon, and César de Bourbon-Busset (1565-1630), who was closest to the deceased Henri III de France, but was considered of illegitimate ancestry, since his descendance came from the Bishop of Liege and of the Pope Alexander VI (Borgia).

But would anyone claim the Duke of Parma is a Borgia? No. He is a De Bourbon de Parme. That is his patrineal lineage, that is the name of his dynasty and of his House. Like we can not claim that Carlos is a Borgia, we can not claim that Elizabeth II is a Hannover. That was the point here.
 
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Nicholas Prince of Nassau (1832-1905)
x Natalia Alexandrovna Countess Pushkina (1836-1913)
= Georg Nicholas of Nassau, created Graf von Merenberg

Georg Nikolaus Graf von Merenberg (1873-1925)
x Olga Alexandrovna Romanova, created Princess Yurievskaya (1873-1925)
= Georg Graf von Merenberg

Georg Graf von Merenberg (1897-1965)
x Elisabeth Anne Müller-Uri (1903-1963)
= Clotilde Elisabeth Freifrau von Rintelen née Gräfin von Merenberg (1941)

Picture: the last Nassau agnate, decorated with a Russian Order. As (great) granddaughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia resp. of Alexander Sergeyevich Count Pushkin (widely seen as Russia's greatest writer, playwright and poet ever) she has strong Russian ties.

Pushkin wasn't a count. He didn't have a title. He was from landed gentry.
 
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