While browsing another thread I was reminded of an amazing inheritance fact I wanted to share. It’s definitely mundane and pointless enough to post here.
If all your children, siblings and 1st cousins predecease you, would your estate go to a 2nd cousin? (I hope so; I’ve a wealthy 2nd cousin whom I’ve not seen for 40 years!) How about 3rd cousins? Few people even know who they are. 4th cousins? Absurd, right?
Yet a very large estate once passed to an 18th cousin !
The event Polycarp refers to involves a genealogical inheritance that almost staggers my imagination. Netherlands then followed the semi-Salic inheritance rule, so Willem III’s daughter Wilhelmina was allowed to inherit the Dutch crown in 1890 only because the (legitimate) Y-chromosome of the dynasty’s founder had gone completely extinct.
Luxemburg also followed the semi-Salic inheritance rule, but it was an old heirloom of the Nassau family that predated their Kingship in Netherlands by many centuries. Actually, the entire House of Nassau was almost extinct … but not quite!
From Queen Wilhelmina, the patrilineal line was followed back 19 generations to Heinrich the Rich (died 1251) before finding a non-extinct line, then forward 19 generations to Wilhelmina’s 18th cousin, Adolf, who became the Grand Duke of Luxemburg. (Wilhelmina and Adolf were much closer relatives than this, of course, but 18th cousins using the patrilineal connection that was the only connection relevant for the inheritance.)
OK, I’m six months late to the party on this one, but this is . . . kind of astonishing.
How did they even figure out that the king had an 18th cousin in tail male, but nothing closer? I mean, is there ever a point where second sons of second sons of second sons kind of diappear into the mass of commoners? Could we have had a “King Ralph” scenario?
Also, the throne of Luxembourg itself passed to a female in 1912. So this “cadet branch” of the House of Nassau bided its time for 700 years, inherited the Grand Duchy (O glorious day!), and then itself went extinct in tail male 22 years later?
If the legitimist Bourbons hadn’t been overthrown (1830) in France, the French throne would have passed to the Orleanists, who were I believe about eight generations distant, in 1883.
It sure seemed astonishing to me too. As to how it’s even possible, German nobles are very scrupulous about their genealogies. (Indeed, IIRC there may be a rule that you lose your inheritance rights unless at least 15 of your 16 gg-grandparents are noble. ) And of course, while many of us are ignorant of our great great grandfather, we probably wouldn’t be if he had been a rich Prince from whom we still had inheritance possibility!
And yes, it is amazingly ironic that this cadet branch bided its time for 700 years, “waiting for” the main branch to go extinct, and then promptly went extinct itself! :smack:
) And of course, while many of us are ignorant of our great great grandfather, we probably wouldn’t be if he had been a rich Prince from whom we still had inheritance possibility!