AHC: World's Most Inbred Family

[WorstOfHumanity]

Hi everyone!

Recently I have been getting into geneology and family tree building, and that got me wondering about how incestual relationships would present on said trees... they aren't usually designed to have them be easily shown given the very nature (and rarity) of them, so I found it a fun challenge. As a result, I concocted a scenario in which a royal family dabbles in consanguinity, in multiple interpretations across time.

Here is the finished product, and I will explain some of the nuances below as well as some general ideas I had about how this would actually present for the people living at the time - I chose the British family, Tudors/Stuarts onwards as that is my main area of royal knowledge. If anyone wants to try their take on the challenge I would love to see what sort of messed up trees you could create lol

Green Section - Based on the Tudors, and the matches they considered in reality

Yellow Section - Based on the Habsburgs (almost a 1 to 1 of their tree, with different individuals of course)

Blue Section - Based on the Ptolemys, the house famous for brother-sister marriage

Relations:

• 2nd Cousins - three pairings
• 1st Cousins - three pairings
• Niblings - three pairings
• Half-Siblings - one pairing
• Siblings - three pairings

As a result, the only pairings that could be considered consanguineous that this family hasn't dabbled in is parent-child...

Physical Presentation:

I imagined that the physical toll this would take would me more muted than other examples to ensure they could keep it going so long, though would eventually catch up to them as it does with every instance of generational inbreeding. For one thing, I imagined red hair becoming the standard for the family, with little outside genes coming in to dominate the recessive genes. Other than that, I thought it would be interesting to have the physical side of things being more internal than external, with the family outwardly remaining fairly attractive in appearance but suffering from fertility issues (the thing I imagined ending the line above, same as the real world Spanish Habsburgs), and certain conditions such as haemophilia as well as rampant mental issues.​

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As such, the final ruler of the house in this world, Mary Amelia Tudor (reigning as Queen Amelia rather than Mary, a nod to Victoria not choosing her forename) would be known as 'the mad queen', suffering from haemophilia, schizophrenia, bipolar and who knows what else; she would never marry but given her parents severe fertility issues it is extremely unlikely she could ever have had children had she tried.​

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Politics:

This world doesn't see the English civil war occur at the same time as our world, instead happening in the late 1700s (perhaps as an analogue to our French Revolution) as a result of Henry X desiring to wed his son and daughter together. The royalist faction would win, ensuring the family held the throne for another four generations. The brother-sister monarchs would go by Joseph and Mary in honour of their biblical namesakes, which would greatly anger Christians on the continent.​

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And so we get the House of Tudor, reigning for 400 years from 1483-1883. Following Amelia's death the crown would be left vacant, and the people would vote whether to abolish the position or elect another family to the throne. How this turns out can be your head-canon, though I do find the idea of the populace electing their own monarch appealing (especially if they don't come from the nobility)​

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And that should just about do it! Again this was just something that came out of me playing around with more realistic family trees, but if the idea interests anyone I'd love to see your take on it; Royal or common, real or fictional.

 

[Mildtryth]

The problem with the third act is that these matches would carry not even the political benefits that might be gained from the matches on the second act.

 

[WorstOfHumanity]

The problem with the third act is that these matches would carry not even the political benefits that might be gained from the matches on the second act.

True, though as stated in the pseudo-lore the family would start to present with severe mental issues. This leads the alt Henry X to wed his children together to 'keep the bloodline pure', perhaps even believing he had divine permission to do so. He would win a civil war (his supporters basing it on the pope-approved marriage of Henry FitzRoy and Mary I setting the precedent despite the very specific circumstances which allowed for it, as well as the belief that the monarch is chosen by God and likening it to biblical accounts of incest such as those between Adam and Eve's children) ensuring it went ahead.

As I mentioned with Christians on the continent, Britain's royals would become pariahs after this though weren't looking for marriage alliances elsewhere anyways

 

[Remitonov]

I mean, if you want the most inbred families in human history, you can try looking up the Ptolemies and Hapsburgs. They're rather hard to beat in that department.

 

[AkhenatenOrRamses]

An extended Ptolemaic Kingdom where some of the rulers have luck with not getting genetically challenged kids is probably your best way of getting the most imbred royal family in history. Hell, they arguably already have that title in OTL - there's a reason George RR Martin based the Targaryens on them.

By the time the Stuarts became kings of Scotland and England, royal intermarriage was limited to cousins at best, and only Spanish royal families ever took that to the extreme (the Habsburgs learned their inbreeding techniques from the Trastamaras before them).

 

[Lalli]

Take almost whatever Ancient Egyptian pharaoh family and let their culture survive. You hardly can go more extreme than they since they notoriously married even their full-siblings and some pharaohs too married their daughters and I wouldn't be too amazed if there wouldn't had been mother-son marriages too. For example Tutankhamun was extremely inbred. And Ptolemies practised inbreeding in such scale that it is wonder that Cleopatra VII was functional person instead being female version of Carlos II of Spain.

 

[AkhenatenOrRamses]

Take almost whatever Ancient Egyptian pharaoh family and let their culture survive. You hardly can go more extreme than they since they notoriously married even their full-siblings and some pharaohs too married their daughters and I wouldn't be too amazed if there wouldn't had been mother-son marriages too. For example Tutankhamun was extremely inbred. And Ptolemies practised inbreeding in such scale that it is wonder that Cleopatra VII was functional person instead being female version of Carlos II of Spain.

A lot of the heirs of the pharaohs, at least in the well documented New Kingdom royal lines, would end up being the sons of minor wives/concubines rather than sister wives given how the lack of inbreeding would allow these initially minor sons to rise in the ranks as their inbred half brothers don't make it. Thutmose III, his son Amenhotep II, and Amenhotep's son Thutmose IV all fit this from the 18th Dynasty. In the 19th you start out with the first three kings of the dynasty already being born to military nobility when Horemheb designates them as his successors (that's why he picked them - the first Ramesses had two heirs in waiting to ensure no succession crisis for a while), and Ramesses II's favorite wives were the non-relatives. The Ptolemies are the unique case because their inbreeding is both well documented and managed to last multiple generations without it sterilizing them supposedly.

 

[Fratsup]

If you want an inbred family making a new culture where the upper class is heavily separated from the underclass and other nobles/aristocrats so that inbreeding is considered normal or even a part of the culture/law/religion.

 

[Don Corleone]

For example Tutankhamun was extremely inbred

When archaeologists created a portrait of what he looked like, someone on an SEC board photoshopped a Bama jersey on him.

Ferdinand I was up there. His parents were double first cousins.

This can't last too long, though - you'll end up with people who can't reproduce.

 

[WorstOfHumanity]

I mean, if you want the most inbred families in human history, you can try looking up the Ptolemies and Hapsburgs. They're rather hard to beat in that department.

Gotta love when people don't read the prompt and say exactly what is stated in it...

By the time the Stuarts became kings of Scotland and England, royal intermarriage was limited to cousins at best, and only Spanish royal families ever took that to the extreme (the Habsburgs learned their inbreeding techniques from the Trastamaras before them).

In real life, sure, but with different individuals being born there's no telling what they may decide to do - this is alternatehistory.com after all

Regardless, my example was meant to serve as just that, an example - if anyone wants to try their hand at it the more the merrier!