Christopher Kennedy Lawford

Rockefeller Family Tree - America's Oil and Philanthropy Dynasty

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 |

Stuart Family Tree - The House of Stuart from Mary, Queen of Scots to Bonnie Prince Charlie

The House of Stuart was the royal dynasty that ruled Scotland from 1371 and both Scotland and England from 1603 until 1714, giving Britain fourteen monarchs from Robert II to Queen Anne as well as the Jacobite claimants who carried its cause into exile. Spelled Stewart in Scotland and Stuart after Mary, Queen of Scots adopted the French form, the family holds the unusual distinction of having united two crowns by inheritance rather than conquest, and of ending in a disputed succession that reshaped the British constitution. ## Origins The family took its name from its office. The Stewarts were hereditary High Stewards of Scotland, a post granted in the twelfth century to a Breton house settled in Renfrewshire. In 1315 Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward, married Marjorie Bruce, daughter of King Robert the Bruce. Their son became Robert II in 1371 when the direct Bruce line failed, and the stewardship turned into a crown. For more than two centuries afterwards the Stewarts ruled Scotland alone, through a run of reigns cut short by battle, captivity and long royal minorities that left the nobility unusually powerful. ## Notable members James IV, the most cultivated of the Scottish kings, married Margaret Tudor in 1503 and so planted the claim that would carry his descendants to the English throne. His granddaughter Mary, Queen of Scots became queen at six days old, reigned briefly and turbulently, and was deposed in 1567 and executed in England twenty years later. Her son, James VI of Scotland, inherited the English crown in 1603 as James I and became the first monarch to rule both kingdoms. His son Charles I lost the Civil Wars and his throne; Charles II returned at the Restoration in 1660; James II and VII was deposed in the Revolution of 1688, after which his daughters Mary II and Anne reigned in his place. In exile his son James Francis Edward Stuart and grandson Charles Edward Stuart, remembered as Bonnie Prince Charlie, led the Jacobite attempts to recover the throne, ending with the rising of 1745. ## Significance No other British dynasty changed the shape of the state so much. The Stuarts brought Scotland and England under one sovereign, presided over the King James Bible and the theatre of Shakespeare's late career, lost a king to Parliament, and provoked the settlements of 1689 and 1701 that made the monarchy answerable to Parliament and Protestant by statute. When Queen Anne died childless in 1714, the crown passed under the Act of Settlement to the descendants of her cousin Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James VI and I, so every British monarch since is still a Stuart descendant. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Founder | Robert II, King of Scots from 1371 | | Ruled | Scotland 1371 to 1714; England and Ireland 1603 to 1714 | | Origin | Renfrewshire, Scotland | | Union of the Crowns | 1603, under James VI of Scotland and I of England | | Last reigning monarch | Anne, Queen of Great Britain, died 1714 | | Jacobite claimants | James Francis Edward, Charles Edward and Henry Benedict Stuart | | Succeeded by | The House of Hanover, through Sophia of Hanover |

The Jackson Family Tree - Michael Jackson

Bernadotte Family Tree - The Swedish Royal House from Charles XIV John to Princess Estelle

The House of Bernadotte is the royal family of Sweden, founded by the French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who was elected Swedish crown prince in 1810 and reigned from 1818 as King Charles XIV John, and it has held the throne in an unbroken line ever since, down to King Carl XVI Gustaf, Crown Princess Victoria and Princess Estelle. ## Origins The dynasty began far from Sweden, in the Gascon town of Pau, where Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was born in 1763 as the son of a provincial lawyer. He rose through the revolutionary French army to become a Marshal of the Empire and Prince of Pontecorvo. In 1810 the Swedish Riksdag, left without an heir after the deposition of Gustav IV Adolf and the accession of the childless Charles XIII, unexpectedly offered the succession to the French marshal. He accepted, converted to Lutheranism, took the name Charles John and in 1818 became king of both Sweden and Norway. His marriage to Desiree Clary, a Marseille merchant's daughter once engaged to Napoleon, produced the dynasty's second king, Oscar I. ## Notable members Oscar I's marriage to Josephine of Leuchtenberg, a granddaughter of the Empress Josephine, brought a descent from Sweden's older royal houses into the line, and Gustaf V's marriage to Victoria of Baden, a great granddaughter of the deposed Gustav IV Adolf, reinforced it. Later generations produced an unusual number of figures known for work outside the court: Prince Eugen, one of Sweden's foremost landscape painters; Gustaf VI Adolf, a working archaeologist and botanist; and Sigvard Bernadotte, an industrial designer. The family's daughters carried the name into the other Scandinavian monarchies and into Belgium: Ingrid became queen of Denmark, Astrid queen of the Belgians and Martha crown princess of Norway, which makes this tree a close relative of the Glucksburg line. ## Significance Under the Bernadottes the Swedish monarchy moved from real political power to a purely ceremonial role, settled by the constitution of 1974. In 1980 Sweden became the first monarchy to adopt full absolute primogeniture, making the infant Crown Princess Victoria heir ahead of her younger brother. Carl XVI Gustaf, who became heir at nine months old and king in 1973, is the longest reigning monarch in Swedish history. Several princes of the house lost their royal titles by marrying commoners and were created Counts of Wisborg by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, a kinsman through Queen Sophia of Nassau, which is why the Bernadotte name is borne today both by a reigning royal house and by a line of counts. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Family name | House of Bernadotte | | Country | Sweden, and Norway until 1905 | | Founder | Charles XIV John, born Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (1763 to 1844) | | Reigning since | 1818 | | Monarchs | Charles XIV John, Oscar I, Charles XV, Oscar II, Gustaf V, Gustaf VI Adolf, Carl XVI Gustaf | | Current head | King Carl XVI Gustaf, reigning since 1973 | | Heir apparent | Crown Princess Victoria, Duchess of Vastergotland | | Principal residences | Stockholm Palace, Drottningholm Palace, Haga Palace | | Royal motto | "For Sweden, with the times" (Carl XVI Gustaf) |