Public Family Trees/Glucksburg/Irene of Greece and Denmark
Born 1942 · Female · Cape Town, South Africa
Daughter of Paul of Greece and Frederica of Hanover
5
Generation
11
Ancestors
0
Descendants
0
Children
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Marriages
Irene of Greece and Denmark
b. 1942
Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark (born 1942) is the youngest child of Paul of Greece and Frederica of Hanover, and the sister of Constantine II and of Queen Sofía of Spain. She was born in Cape Town during the family's wartime exile in South Africa. Trained as a classical pianist, she performed in public in Greece and abroad, and for a period after the fall of the Greek monarchy she lived in India, where she deve…
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Gen 1 · 1817 - 1898
Louise of Hesse-Kassel (1817 to 1898) was Queen of Denmark as the wife of Christian IX and the matriarch of the modern House of Glücksburg. Born in Kassel, she was a niece of Christian VIII of Denmark, and it was partly through her own descent that her husband's claim to the Danish succession was strengthened. She married Christian in 1842 and had six children: Frederik VIII, Alexandra, George I of Greece, Dagmar, Thyra and Valdemar. A gifted musician and a determined organiser of her children's futures, she did more than anyone to arrange the marriages that carried her family into the British, Russian, Greek and later Norwegian royal houses.
Gen 1 · 1818 - 1906
Christian IX (1818 to 1906) was King of Denmark from 1863 until his death, and the ancestor from whom every later member of the House of Glücksburg descends. Born at Gottorp Castle in Schleswig into a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg, he was named heir to the childless Frederik VII and came to the throne in a year of crisis, losing Schleswig and Holstein in the war of 1864 and later accepting the parliamentary reforms that shaped modern Danish politics. With his wife Louise of Hesse-Kassel he had six children whose marriages earned him the nickname father-in-law of Europe: Frederik VIII of Denmark, Alexandra, queen consort of the United Kingdom, George I of Greece, Dagmar, who became Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, Thyra, and Valdemar.
Gen 2 · 1843 - 1912
Frederik VIII (1843 to 1912) was King of Denmark from 1906 to 1912, the eldest son of Christian IX and Louise of Hesse-Kassel. He waited more than forty years as crown prince, during which he was more sympathetic than his father to the liberal parliamentary movement, and his short reign was marked by a conciliatory tone towards the Danish government and a cautious reform of the relationship with Iceland. He married Louise of Sweden in 1869. Two of their sons became kings: Christian X of Denmark and Prince Carl, who was elected King of Norway in 1905 as Haakon VII, making Frederik VIII the father of two reigning Scandinavian dynasties.
Gen 2 · 1844 - 1925
Alexandra of Denmark (1844 to 1925) was Queen consort of the United Kingdom and Empress of India as the wife of Edward VII. The eldest daughter of Christian IX and Louise of Hesse-Kassel, she grew up in modest circumstances in Copenhagen before her marriage in 1863 made her Princess of Wales, a role she held for 38 years, longer than anyone before her. Admired for her style and her charitable work, she founded the Imperial Military Nursing Service that bears her name and gave her name to Alexandra Rose Day. Her sister Dagmar became Empress of Russia, her brother became George I of Greece, and her daughter Maud became Queen of Norway.
Gen 2 · 1845 - 1913
George I (1845 to 1913) was King of the Hellenes for almost fifty years and the founder of the Greek branch of the House of Glücksburg. Born Prince Vilhelm of Denmark, the second son of Christian IX, he was elected to the Greek throne in 1863 at the age of seventeen after the deposition of Otto of Bavaria, and deliberately styled himself King of the Hellenes rather than King of Greece. His reign saw the cession of the Ionian Islands to Greece, the gradual consolidation of parliamentary government, the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, and the territorial gains of the Balkan Wars. He married Olga Constantinovna of Russia in 1867, and died in Thessaloniki in March 1913.
Gen 3 · 1868 - 1918
Nicholas II (1868 to 1918) was the last Emperor of Russia, reigning from 1894 until his abdication in March 1917. He was the eldest son of Alexander III and of Maria Feodorovna, the Danish-born daughter of Christian IX, which made him a grandson of the founder of the House of Glücksburg and a first cousin of both George V of the United Kingdom and Christian X of Denmark, whom he closely resembled. His reign saw rapid industrial growth alongside the defeat of the Russo-Japanese War, the revolution of 1905 and the creation of the Duma, and finally the strains of the First World War, which brought the three-century Romanov monarchy to an end. He died in 1918.
Gen 3 · 1869 - 1938
Maud of Wales (1869 to 1938) was the first queen of independent Norway, wife of Haakon VII. The youngest daughter of Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark, she was also a granddaughter of Christian IX, which means both she and her husband descended from the founder of the House of Glücksburg. She married her first cousin Prince Carl of Denmark in 1896 and moved to Norway when he accepted the throne in 1905. Keenly interested in winter sports, music and fashion, she kept close ties to Britain while supporting Norwegian charities and the arts, and her wardrobe is now a studied collection at the National Museum in Oslo. She was the mother of Olav V.
Gen 4 · 1890 - 1947
George II (1890 to 1947) was King of the Hellenes from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1935 until his death, the eldest son of Constantine I and Sophia of Prussia. He came to the throne after the Asia Minor defeat, was pushed aside within two years when Greece declared a republic, and lived in exile in Romania and Britain for eleven years before a plebiscite restored the monarchy in 1935. His second reign saw the Metaxas government, the Italian invasion of 1940 and the German occupation, through which he led the Greek government in exile from Cairo and London. He returned to Greece in 1946 and died the following year, succeeded by his brother Paul.
Gen 4 · 1893 - 1920
Alexander (1893 to 1920) was King of the Hellenes from 1917 to 1920, the second son of Constantine I and Sophia of Prussia. He was placed on the throne by the Allies and the Venizelos government after his father and elder brother were forced out, and ruled as a largely powerless monarch while real authority rested with his prime minister, who kept him from political affairs and from contact with his exiled family. During his short reign Greece fought alongside the Allies and made large territorial gains in Thrace and Asia Minor. His marriage in 1919 to Aspasia Manos, a Greek commoner, was not initially recognised. He died in 1920 and was succeeded by his father.
Gen 4 · 1899 - 1972
Frederik IX (1899 to 1972) was King of Denmark from 1947 until his death, the elder son of Christian X and Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. A career naval officer before his accession, he was an enthusiastic sailor and an accomplished amateur conductor, and he cultivated a relaxed, approachable style that suited post-war Denmark. The defining act of his reign was the constitutional change of 1953, which allowed female succession and so made his eldest daughter his heir. He married Ingrid of Sweden in 1935, and their three daughters were Margrethe II of Denmark, Benedikte, and Anne-Marie, who became Queen of the Hellenes.
Gen 5 · b. 1940
Margrethe II (born 1940) reigned as Queen of Denmark from 1972 until her abdication on 14 January 2024, becoming Europe's longest-serving head of state before she stood down. The eldest daughter of Frederik IX and Ingrid of Sweden, she became heir only because the constitution was changed in 1953 to allow female succession. She trained as an archaeologist, taking part in excavations in Egypt and Italy, and built a parallel career as an artist: she designed stage sets and costumes, and illustrated the Danish edition of The Lord of the Rings under the name Ingahild Grathmer. She married Henri de Laborde de Monpezat in 1967 and is the mother of King Frederik X and Prince Joachim.
The House of Medici was a Florentine banking family and political dynasty that rose from mercantile wealth in the late fourteenth century to dominate the Republic of Florence, produced two popes and two queens of France, and ruled as hereditary Grand Dukes of Tuscany for nearly two centuries before the direct male line died out in 1737. ## Origins The family's fortune began with Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, who founded the Medici Bank around 1397 and built it into one of the most trusted financial institutions in Europe through close ties to the papacy. His son Cosimo de' Medici turned that wealth into political dominance of Florence without ever holding a formal princely title, ruling through alliance, patronage, and public opinion for three decades. Cosimo's descendants, especially his grandson Lorenzo de' Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, consolidated the family's grip on the city while becoming the era's foremost patrons of Renaissance art and humanist scholarship. ## Notable Members Lorenzo the Magnificent's sons included Giovanni, who became Pope Leo X, the first Medici pope, and whose cousin Giulio later reigned as Pope Clement VII. Lorenzo's granddaughter Catherine de' Medici became queen of France and, as regent, steered the country through the Wars of Religion; a later Medici, Marie de' Medici, likewise became queen of France as the second wife of Henry IV. When the senior line failed with the assassination of Alessandro de' Medici in 1537, the family's junior branch, descended from Cosimo the Elder's brother, provided Cosimo I de' Medici, who was crowned the first Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569. His descendants, including the scientific patrons Cosimo II and Ferdinando II, ruled Tuscany until Gian Gastone de' Medici, the last Grand Duke, died without an heir in 1737. His sister, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, outlived him as the family's final member. ## Significance Beyond their political rule, the Medici reshaped European culture through unmatched patronage: they backed Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo Galilei, and financed the buildings, art, and institutions that still define Florence today. Anna Maria Luisa's 1737 Patto di Famiglia bequeathed the family's entire art collection to the Tuscan state on the condition it never leave Florence, directly founding the holdings of the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace. | Fact | Details | |---|---| | Founded | c. 1397, Florence (Medici Bank) | | Founder | Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici | | Seat | Florence; later the Grand Duchy of Tuscany | | Peak title | Grand Duke of Tuscany (from 1569) | | Popes produced | Leo X (1513-1521), Clement VII (1523-1534) | | Queens of France | Catherine de' Medici, Marie de' Medici | | Dynasty ended | 1737 (Gian Gastone); 1743 (Anna Maria Luisa) | | Lasting legacy | Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace collections |
The House of Bonaparte is the French imperial dynasty founded by Napoleon I, a family of minor Corsican nobles from Ajaccio who within one generation ruled France and placed brothers and sisters on the thrones of Spain, Holland, Naples and Westphalia, and whose senior line survives today in Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoleon. The family descends from Carlo Buonaparte, an Ajaccio lawyer, and Letizia Ramolino, whose eight surviving children were born between 1768 and 1784 on an island that had only just passed from Genoese to French rule. The second son, Napoleon, became First Consul in 1799 and Emperor of the French in 1804, and the whole family rose with him. ## Origins in Corsica The Buonaparte were a patrician family of Ajaccio with roots traced to Tuscany, holding local office and a modest estate rather than great wealth. Carlo Buonaparte studied law at Pisa, served in the Corsican assembly and secured French recognition of the family's noble status, which opened the military academies of Brienne and Paris to his sons. After his death in 1785 Letizia Ramolino held the household together, later presiding over the imperial court as Madame Mere and outliving the Empire itself. ## Notable members Napoleon I is the figure the family is remembered for: general of the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, author of the Civil Code, and Emperor until his abdication in 1815 and exile on Saint Helena. His siblings became sovereigns in their own right, Joseph in Naples and Spain, Louis in Holland, Elisa in Tuscany, Caroline in Naples with her husband Joachim Murat, and Jerome in Westphalia. Napoleon's only legitimate son, Napoleon II, was titled King of Rome. The dynasty returned to power through Louis and Hortense de Beauharnais's son, who ruled as Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870 alongside Empress Eugenie. Later generations produced the ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte and the celebrated Paris salon hostess Princess Mathilde. ## Significance No other modern European family moved so far so quickly, and few left as deep a mark. The Napoleonic Code still underpins the civil law of much of continental Europe and Latin America, while the Second Empire rebuilt Paris into the city of boulevards visitors see today. Two empires, two exiles and a princely line that continues in the present make the Bonapartes the most consequential of the newer European houses. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Family name | Bonaparte, originally Buonaparte | | Place of origin | Ajaccio, Corsica, with earlier roots in Tuscany | | Founding couple | Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino | | Best known member | Napoleon I, Emperor of the French | | Thrones held | France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Naples, Westphalia | | Imperial periods | First Empire 1804 to 1815, Second Empire 1852 to 1870 | | Current head of the house | Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoleon, born 1986 | | Generations in this tree | Five, from Carlo Buonaparte to Jean-Christophe |
The Rockefeller family is an American business and philanthropic dynasty founded on the Standard Oil fortune of John D. Rockefeller, whose descendants have shaped American banking, conservation, medicine, modern art and national politics across five generations. From a modest upstate New York farmhouse the family rose to control the largest industrial enterprise of the Gilded Age, then spent the twentieth century converting that fortune into foundations, museums, parks and public office. ## Origins The line begins with William Avery Rockefeller (1810-1906), a traveling salesman from Granger, New York, and his wife Eliza Davison (1813-1889), who married in 1837 and raised six children in Richford, Moravia and Owego before the family moved to Ohio. Their eldest son, John D. Rockefeller, began as a Cleveland bookkeeper, entered oil refining in 1863 and incorporated the Standard Oil Company in 1870 together with his younger brother William Rockefeller. By the 1880s Standard Oil refined the great majority of American petroleum, until the Supreme Court ordered its dissolution in 1911. ## Notable members John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman Rockefeller had four children who reached adulthood, among them the Chicago arts patron Edith Rockefeller McCormick and the family's only son, John D. Rockefeller Jr. With Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, a co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art, John Jr. had six children who defined the family's public face: Abby "Babs" Rockefeller Mauze, the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III, Nelson Rockefeller, who served four terms as Governor of New York and then as Vice President of the United States, the conservationist and venture capitalist Laurance Rockefeller, Winthrop Rockefeller, Governor of Arkansas, and the banker David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan. Their children, known within the family as the Cousins, include Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the Asmat art collector Michael Rockefeller, Lieutenant Governor Winthrop Paul Rockefeller of Arkansas, the economist Neva Goodwin and the Synergos founder Peggy Dulany. ## Significance The family's lasting mark is institutional rather than dynastic. The Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago, Rockefeller University, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Center, the Museum of Modern Art, Colonial Williamsburg, Lincoln Center, the Asia Society and several national parks all trace their founding or their endowment to a Rockefeller. Few American families have moved so completely from industrial fortune to organized philanthropy and elected office within three generations. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Surname | Rockefeller | | Origin | Richford, New York, United States | | Founder | John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) | | Family business | Standard Oil, later Chase Manhattan Bank | | Known for | Standard Oil, the Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Center, the Museum of Modern Art | | Public offices held | Vice President of the United States, Governor of New York, Governor of Arkansas, United States Senator | | Generations covered | Five, from William Avery Rockefeller to the fourth-generation Cousins |
Irene of Greece and Denmark's recorded parents are Paul of Greece, Frederica of Hanover.
Irene of Greece and Denmark has 2 recorded siblings: Constantine II of Greece, Sofía of Greece and Denmark.
Irene of Greece and Denmark is recorded as Princess of Greece and Denmark; concert pianist in the Glucksburg family tree.
Irene of Greece and Denmark's recorded native place is Cape Town, South Africa.
11 ancestors and 0 descendants of Irene of Greece and Denmark are recorded so far, within a tree of 59 people.
Irene of Greece and Denmark is recorded as Christian IX of Denmark's Great-Great-Granddaughter.
Irene of Greece and Denmark is recorded in the Glucksburg family tree on My rOoOts, alongside 58 other people.
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