Public Family Trees/Mahatma Gandhi/Nirmala Gandhi
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Nirmala Gandhi
Nirmala Gandhi was the wife of Ramdas Gandhi, the third son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi. She shared her husband's life in central India, where Ramdas was engaged in business and in constructive-work activities connected to his father's movement. Comparatively little is documented about her own public life, but she is remembered as the mother of Sumitra Kulkarni, who carried the family's association with Sab…
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Gen 2 · 1869 - 1948
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869-1948) was an Indian lawyer and political leader who led India's independence movement from British rule through nonviolent civil disobedience, a philosophy known as satyagraha. Born in Porbandar, Gujarat, to Karamchand and Putlibai Gandhi, he trained as a barrister in London, developed his methods of nonviolent resistance while working in South Africa, and returned to India in 1915 to lead campaigns such as the Salt March. He married Kasturba Gandhi in 1883 and the couple had four sons, Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas and Devdas, whose descendants carried forward his legacy in India and South Africa. Revered as the Father of the Nation in India, he is honored worldwide as Mahatma, meaning 'great soul'.
Gen 3 · 1888 - 1948
Harilal Gandhi (1888-1948) was the eldest son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi. His relationship with his father was troubled and often publicly strained: Gandhi discouraged him from pursuing a formal legal education in England, a decision Harilal resented for the rest of his life. Harilal struggled with business failures, alcoholism, and a public conversion to Islam and later return to Hinduism, all covered extensively in the Indian press of the time. He married Gulab (Chanchal) Gandhi, with whom he had several children, including a son, Kantilal Gandhi. Estranged from his father for much of his adult life, Harilal died in Mumbai in 1948, shortly after Gandhi's own death.
Gen 3 · 1892 - 1956
Manilal Gandhi (1892-1956) was the second son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi. He spent most of his adult life in South Africa, where he took over editorship of Indian Opinion, the newspaper his father had founded in 1903 to serve the Indian community, and continued it for decades from the Phoenix Settlement near Durban. He was active in the Natal Indian Congress and took part in passive-resistance campaigns against discriminatory legislation in South Africa, for which he was imprisoned several times. He married Sushila Gandhi, and their children, including Arun Gandhi and Ela Gandhi, continued the family's activist tradition in both India and South Africa. Manilal died in 1956.
Gen 4 · b. 1935
Rajmohan Gandhi (born 1935) is an Indian historian, biographer and former politician, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi through his son Devdas Gandhi and daughter-in-law Lakshmi Gandhi. A prolific author, he has written biographies of his grandfather, including 'Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire', as well as works on other major figures in Indian history. He served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's Parliament, and has held academic positions at universities including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he has taught history and political science. He is the brother of Ramchandra Gandhi, Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee.
Gen 4 · b. 1940
Ela Gandhi (born 1940) is a South African social worker and politician, a granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi through his son Manilal Gandhi and daughter-in-law Sushila Gandhi. Raised at the Phoenix Settlement near Durban that her grandfather had founded, she was active in the anti-apartheid movement and was later placed under a banning order by the South African government for her activism. Following the end of apartheid, she served as a Member of Parliament for the African National Congress from 1994 to 2004 and has continued work promoting nonviolence and restorative justice through the Gandhi Development Trust. She is the sister of peace activist Arun Gandhi.
Gen 4 · b. 1945
Gopalkrishna Gandhi (born 1945) is an Indian diplomat, writer and former civil servant, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi through his son Devdas Gandhi and daughter-in-law Lakshmi Gandhi. He had a long career in the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Foreign Service, serving as High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka and Ambassador to Norway and Iceland, before serving as Governor of West Bengal from 2004 to 2009. He was also the Vice-Presidential candidate for a coalition of opposition parties in India's 2017 election. He is the brother of Rajmohan Gandhi, Ramchandra Gandhi and Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee.
Gen 5 · b. 1960
Tushar Gandhi (born 1960) is an Indian author and social activist, a great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi through the line of his eldest son, Harilal Gandhi, and Harilal's son, Kantilal Gandhi. He is best known for his book 'Let's Kill Gandhi', a detailed account of the events and conspiracy surrounding his great-grandfather's death, and he has served as president of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting Gandhian values. He has been an outspoken public commentator on nonviolence, communal harmony and the political uses and misuses of his great-grandfather's legacy in contemporary India.
Gen 1
Karamchand Gandhi, known as Kaba Gandhi, was the father of Mahatma Gandhi and served as diwan (chief minister) to the princely state of Porbandar and later to Rajkot and Vankaner in the Kathiawar region of present-day Gujarat. A respected local administrator, he came from a family with a long tradition of holding ministerial posts in the small Kathiawari states. He married several times; his last wife, Putlibai, was Mohandas Gandhi's mother. Karamchand died in 1885, when Mohandas was a teenager, an event Gandhi later wrote about in his autobiography as a formative and painful memory of his youth.
Gen 1
Putlibai Gandhi was the mother of Mahatma Gandhi and the fourth wife of Karamchand Gandhi, diwan of Porbandar. A devout Hindu of the Pranami Vaishnava tradition, she was known for her deep religiosity, frequent fasting, and strict personal discipline, qualities that Gandhi later credited as a profound early influence on his own commitment to truth, self-restraint, and nonviolence. She raised Mohandas in Porbandar and Rajkot alongside his siblings. Putlibai died in 1891 while Gandhi was studying law in London, and he learned of her death only after returning to India, a loss he described as one of the deepest sorrows of his early life.
Gen 2 · 1869 - 1944
Kasturba Gandhi (1869-1944), also known as Kasturba Makhanji Kapadia before marriage, was the wife of Mahatma Gandhi and an activist in her own right. Married to Mohandas in 1883 in an arranged child marriage customary at the time, she joined him in South Africa and later in India, participating in satyagraha campaigns, being jailed multiple times for civil disobedience, and organizing relief and education work among India's poor. The couple had four sons: Harilal, Manilal, Ramdas and Devdas. She died in 1944 while imprisoned with her husband at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune, during the Quit India movement. She is remembered as 'Ba', a term of affection and respect across India.
Gen 3 · 1900 - 1957
Devdas Gandhi (1900-1957) was the youngest son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi. Unlike his brothers, he pursued a career in journalism, working at Young India and later becoming managing editor of the Hindustan Times, one of India's leading English-language newspapers, a post he held until his death. In 1933 he married Lakshmi, daughter of the Indian statesman C. Rajagopalachari, in a match his father supported despite the families' different castes, seeing it as consistent with his opposition to caste restrictions on marriage. Devdas and Lakshmi had four children, Rajmohan, Ramchandra, Gopalkrishna and Tara, who became, respectively, a historian and politician, a philosopher, a diplomat and governor, and a writer, each prominent in independent India's public life. Devdas died in 1957.
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 |
The Kennedy family is an Irish American political dynasty from Boston, Massachusetts, whose members have included the 35th President of the United States, three United States senators, four congressmen, several ambassadors, and the founders of the Peace Corps and the Special Olympics. Across four documented generations the family moved from a County Wexford farm to the White House, and its name became shorthand in American public life for both political ambition and public service. ## Origins The American line begins with Patrick Kennedy, a farmer's son from Dunganstown, near New Ross in County Wexford, who emigrated to East Boston during the Great Famine. His son, Patrick Joseph "P. J." Kennedy (1858 to 1929), built a livelihood in the liquor and banking trades and served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, becoming one of the Democratic ward leaders who ran the city's Irish Catholic politics. On the other side stood John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald (1863 to 1950), congressman and twice Mayor of Boston. The two families joined in 1914 when P. J.'s son Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. married Honey Fitz's daughter Rose Fitzgerald. Their nine children, raised between Brookline, Bronxville and the compound at Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, form the generation the world knows. ## Notable members John F. Kennedy served as President from 1961 until his death in 1963, having previously represented Massachusetts in the House and Senate. His brother Robert F. Kennedy was Attorney General, then Senator from New York, and a candidate for the presidency in 1968. Their youngest brother Edward "Ted" Kennedy sat in the United States Senate for almost 47 years and was one of the most productive legislators of his era. The eldest son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., was a naval aviator killed on a volunteer mission in 1944. Away from elected office, Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics, her husband Sargent Shriver created the Peace Corps and Head Start, and Jean Kennedy Smith founded the arts and disability organisation VSA before serving as United States Ambassador to Ireland. The following generations have produced congressmen, a lieutenant governor, ambassadors, documentary filmmakers, human rights advocates and journalists. ## Significance No other American family has combined electoral success, philanthropy and public visibility on this scale for so long. The Kennedys shaped the civil rights era, the space programme, immigration reform, health care legislation and the modern understanding of disability rights, and their private losses were mourned publicly in a way usually reserved for royalty. The Kennedy Library in Boston, the Kennedy Center in Washington and dozens of schools and institutions carry the name. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Family name | Kennedy | | Irish origin | Dunganstown, County Wexford, Ireland | | American home | Boston and Hyannis Port, Massachusetts | | Founding couple | Patrick Joseph Kennedy and Mary Augusta Hickey | | Best known member | John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States | | Generations covered | Four | | Offices held | Presidency, US Senate, US House, ambassadorships, state office | | Institutions founded | Peace Corps, Special Olympics, Best Buddies, Citizens Energy |
The Rothschilds are a European banking dynasty founded in Frankfurt am Main by Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), whose five sons established banking houses in Frankfurt, Vienna, Naples, London and Paris and together built the most powerful private financial network of the nineteenth century. ## Origins Mayer Amschel Rothschild was born in 1744 in the Judengasse, the walled Jewish street of Frankfurt am Main, where the family took its name from the red shield that had marked an ancestor's house. He began as a dealer in rare coins and medals, became court factor to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel in 1769, and turned that position into a banking business handling loans, bullion and government paper. With his wife Gutle Schnapper he had ten children who reached adulthood, five sons and five daughters. ## The five houses Mayer Amschel's decisive act was to place his sons in five cities so that the family could move money and news across borders as a single firm. Amschel Mayer stayed in Frankfurt, Salomon went to Vienna, Nathan to London, Carl to Naples and James to Paris. The brothers financed the allied campaigns against Napoleon, then the governments, railways and industries of nineteenth century Europe. The Naples house closed in 1860 with Italian unification, Frankfurt in 1901 for want of an heir, and Vienna in 1938 after the Anschluss. London and Paris survived, and their successors trade today as Rothschild and Co and the Edmond de Rothschild Group. ## Notable members Nathan Mayer Rothschild founded N M Rothschild and Sons and made London the centre of international lending. His son Lionel broke the bar on Jews sitting in Parliament, taking his Commons seat in 1858, and his grandson Nathan Mayer became the first Jewish member of the House of Lords in 1885. James Mayer de Rothschild dominated French finance under three regimes and bought Chateau Lafite, while his son Edmond funded the first Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine. The family also produced naturalists and collectors rather than only bankers: Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, the zoologist to whom the Balfour Declaration was addressed in 1917; his brother Charles, the flea specialist who founded British nature conservation; Charles's daughter Dame Miriam Rothschild, a Fellow of the Royal Society; and another daughter, Nica, the patron of Thelonious Monk. Jacob, 4th Baron Rothschild, built RIT Capital Partners and chaired the trustees of the National Gallery. ## Significance The Rothschilds were the first banking family to operate as a genuinely international partnership, and for much of the nineteenth century they were the principal lenders to European states. Their name is attached to railways, mines, hospitals, museums, nature reserves, Bordeaux first growths and a long tradition of Jewish philanthropy. Repeated marriages between first cousins kept capital and control inside the family, which is why the branches of this tree cross back into one another so often. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Founder | Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) | | Matriarch | Gutle Schnapper (1753-1849) | | Origin | The Judengasse, Frankfurt am Main | | Children of the founder | Ten, five sons and five daughters | | The five houses | Frankfurt, Vienna, Naples, London, Paris | | Motto | Concordia, Integritas, Industria | | Principal firms | N M Rothschild and Sons, de Rothschild Freres, S. M. von Rothschild | | Still active today | Rothschild and Co, Edmond de Rothschild Group | | Known for | Government finance, railways, wine estates, natural history, art collections, philanthropy |
Nirmala Gandhi has 1 recorded child: Sumitra Kulkarni.
Nirmala Gandhi married Ramdas Gandhi.
Nirmala Gandhi's recorded native place is Nagpur, India.
Nirmala Gandhi is recorded in the Mahatma Gandhi family tree on My rOoOts, alongside 20 other people.
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