Is the British royal family really German?

Question

When Diana died, the documentary I watched claimed she was more true "Anglo-Saxon" than the royal family - based on her heritage. They said the royal family are really German imports, is this true? Everyone is just as English of course, no matter what there ethnicity or race, but I was just wondering if their ancestors really did move here from Germany

Answer 1

Yes. Their original family was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. They changed it in 1917 due to fear of anti-German sentiment during the first World War.

Answer 2

A lot of we English are of German ancestry that`s what the Saxon bit is in Anglo-Saxon.
But yes the current Royal Family is a little bit more German than most of us.It started with The Hanovers in the 18th century ,Queen Victoria married a German and our current Royals became the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha ,our Queen`s Grandfather changed the name before WW1 to a more English sounding Windsor to distance them from his cousin the German Kaiser Wilhelm.Names discarded include Battenburg (too German) which later became Mountbatten a name adopted by the Queen`s husband Philip.

Answer 3

No more so than they are Greek, Danish, or any of half a dozen other nationalities. Up until the 1910s they had a German surname (Saxe-Coburg), due to the fact of Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, being German-born. However, all the royal families throughout Europe have intermarried for so many centuries that it's difficult to assign any "real" nationality to their members.

Queen Elizabeth can probably be considered more British than most of the country's monarchs, since you have to go back to her great-grandparents (which included a Dane, a German, and a Croatian) before you find an ancestor that wasn't British by birth. By royal standards, 3 generations is practically purebred.

Answer 4

The European Royal families are all related. The British Royal family are descended, directly and indirectly to the German family, but you can go back even further to the Danish Royal family of the late 1700's. Intermarriage has taken place for such a long time that it is difficult to say who is the 'prime ancestor' to any of the European Royals.
The last Czar of Russia was directly related to the Danes, as was the Kaiser of Germany, The King of England, The King of Greece etc.
The BBC History channel has recently released a documentary about the "Father-in-law of Europe" showing the connections.

Answer 5

The Windsors are of German stock.Their name was originally Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,but changed to Windsor in 1917.The present Queen's mother was Scottish, so the line has become much more "homegrown" over the years.The Duke of Edinburgh is mostly Danish.His family name of Mountbatten was first
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-
Glucksburg,
then first changed to Battenberg before becoming the anglicized Mountbatten.
The Royal family has a strong German influence because Queen Victoria thought the German element quite important(she herself being of German stock);her husband Albert was German and she married off her children to people of similar breeding.Edward VI married the Danish Alexandra,but his son,George V, married Queen Mary,who's ancestry was German royalty.
The Queen's children have made the family more home-based by marrying English-born Diana,Sarah(English-Irish),
Mark Phillips and Sophie.

Answer 6

The royal families of Europe all intermarried throughout the centuries. It is probably true about Diana being more "English". The royals are probably as much German as English. Prince Philip was Danish/Greek. Queen Elizabeth's parents were at least half German.

http://www.tree.familyhistory.uk.com/pedigree.php?personID=I908&tree=05

Answer 7

From Queen Victoria, her ancestors were mostly in German descent which are mostly from Hanover the house where she belong plus her husband Prince Albert is a German. Later King Edward VII belongs to the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. George V changed the name of his house Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor during the 1st World War due to their hate among the Germans.

Answer 8

The Windsors are indeed descended from German imports; here is how it came about: Charles II had no legitimate heirs; his brother James II became King upon Charles II's death but was deposed because of his Catholicism (his descendants, both named Charles became the pretenders to the throne, the Jacobins, but were never successful in regaining it). James II's daughter Mary (from his first Protestant marriage) and her husband William of Orange became the monarchs and were childless and died relatively young; they were succeeded by James II's second Protestant daughter Anne who likewise died childless. At that juncture, one of the descendants of one of Charles II's sisters, who had married a German prince, was called upon to assume the throne of England, George I; he did not even speak English. The Windsors are descended from George I and originally were called Battenburgs, which they changed to Mountbatten during World War I. Diana, conversely, is descended directly from Charles II through illegitimacy.

Answer 9

I read in wikipedia that all the English people orginally originated from Germany (thousands of years ago) so yes British royal family ancestors are Germans.

Answer 10

Queen Victoria was of German/Russian descent;
Her husband, Prince Albert was throroughly German and between them they had 11 children or was it 13?
Which means, of course, they were a lot more German than English.
The German Kaiser Wilhelm was a cousin of King George V who was a child of Queen Vic.
What more proof do you want?

Answer 11

Yes, the House of Windsor is of Germanic descent. Weird, though, that they would say an English person is more Anglo-Saxon than are Germans. Saxony is in the heart of Germany.