How to read this Beethoven family tree
Read the Beethoven family tree from the top down, one generation to a row, with children hanging from the union of their parents. Ludwig is the centre. The marks follow the genogram symbols, and the lines between people show abuse, conflict and focus.
A portrait is a person
Four people have a portrait that is free to use. A silhouette stands in for the rest.
The plate names the person
It gives the years, with a dagger before the year of death, and the post.
A double ring is the centre
Ludwig, the composer, is the centre of the chart.
Short lines are short lives
Four of the seven children died before the age of three.
Red bars mark a condition
Alcohol misuse is marked in three generations, and for Ludwig it is marked as suspected.
The first musician of the family
The Neue Deutsche Biographie calls the composer’s grandfather the first musician of the family.6 Ludwig van Beethoven the Elder came from Mechelen and joined the choir of the Elector at Bonn in 1733 as a bass. In 1761 he became Kapellmeister, the head of the court music.1 Beside his post he traded in wine.7
He married Maria Josepha Poll, a woman of the Rhineland.6 She became an alcoholic and was placed in a clinic, where she died in 1775.7 This is the first generation of drink on the Beethoven family tree. Her husband died of a stroke on 24 December 1773, three years after the birth of the grandson who carried his name.7
Ludwig van Beethoven the ElderKapellmeister at Bonn from 1761.
Ludwig van BeethovenThe composer, the centre of the chart.
Nikolaus Johann van BeethovenPharmacist at Linz.
Karl van BeethovenThe nephew and heir.
Johann, the tenor, and the second generation of drink
Their son Johann helped out in the court choir from 1756 and held a post as tenor from 1764.1 The Neue Deutsche Biographie describes him as unsteady and careless, and later given to drink.6 He married Maria Magdalena Keverich of Ehrenbreitstein, the daughter of the head cook of the Elector of Trier, at St Remigius in Bonn on 12 November 1767.211
Witnesses described a hard schooling at the keyboard. Johann beat the boy to make him practise and dragged him out of bed to play at night.8 On the Beethoven family tree this is a line of abuse drawn from father to son.
Maria Magdalena died of consumption on 17 July 1787, soon after Ludwig came back from his first stay in Vienna.21 In a letter of that September he called her his best friend.2 The commentary of the letter edition says that Johann’s drinking was well advanced by then and that the family was deep in debt.2 In 1789 he was suspended from service, and half of his pay was ordered paid to Ludwig to keep the family.29 Johann died on 18 December 1792, a month after Ludwig had left for Vienna.21
Seven children, three of whom lived
The third row of the Beethoven family tree holds seven children. The first, Ludwig Maria, lived four days in April 1769.11 The next son was given his name. Ludwig was baptised in Bonn on 17 December 1770, and the day of his birth is not recorded.1 Anna Maria lived four days in 1779, Franz Georg died at two11 and Maria Margarete died on 26 November 1787, four months after her mother.2
| Child | Born | What became of the child |
|---|---|---|
| LMLudwig Maria | April 1769 | Died within a week. |
| Ludwig | Baptised 17 December 1770 | Composer in Vienna, never married. |
| KAKaspar Anton Karl | April 1774 | Clerk and cashier in Vienna. |
| Nikolaus Johann | October 1776 | Pharmacist at Linz, then a landowner. |
| AMAnna Maria | February 1779 | Died within a week. |
| FGFranz Georg | January 1781 | Died at two. |
| MMMaria Margarete | May 1786 | Died in November 1787. |
Kaspar Karl and Nikolaus Johann
On the Beethoven family tree both younger brothers follow Ludwig to Austria. Kaspar Karl was from 1813 a cashier of the state debt office in Vienna. He died on 15 November 1815.4 He had married Johanna Reiss in May 1806, and their son was born that September.10
Nikolaus Johann was a pharmacist and on 13 March 1808 bought the pharmacy at the Golden Crown in Linz.3 On 8 November 1812 he married his housekeeper, Therese Obermayer. Ludwig went to Linz to stop the match and failed.12 The couple had no children. In 1819 Nikolaus bought an estate at Gneixendorf, where Ludwig and Karl stayed in the autumn of 1826.129
The nephew Karl and the guardianship case
Kaspar’s will named Ludwig guardian of Karl, and a codicil asked that Ludwig and the boy’s mother act together. Four days after the death the court made them guardians jointly.10 On 9 January 1816 the Lower Austrian Landrecht set that order aside and named Ludwig the sole guardian.5
The case ran until 1820. Ludwig held Johanna unfit and placed Karl in boarding schools. In December 1818 he lost the case before the Landrecht when he could not prove noble birth, and it passed to the city court, the Magistrat.9 The Magistrat gave Johanna custody in September 1819, and the court of appeal gave it back to Ludwig on 8 April 1820.10 His output of music fell in the same years, which his biographer Maynard Solomon puts down in part to the case.9
In the summer of 1826 Karl tried to shoot himself at the ruins of Rauhenstein near Baden. He survived and asked to be taken to his mother.10 After he recovered he joined the army, and Ludwig made him his sole heir.910 The Beethoven family tree draws the tie from uncle to nephew as a line of focus.
Ludwig died in Vienna on 26 March 1827. The autopsy found severe damage to the liver, which may have come from heavy drinking, so the chart marks his drinking as suspected, the third generation.9 About ten thousand people followed the funeral procession three days later.9 Karl left the army in 1832 and married Caroline Naske, and they had four daughters and a son.10
A timeline of the Beethoven family tree
The grandfather joins the choir
He sings bass for the Elector at Bonn.
Ludwig is baptised
In Bonn.
Maria Magdalena dies
Of consumption, in Bonn.
Johann is suspended
Half his pay goes to Ludwig.
Kaspar Karl dies
The guardianship case begins.
Ludwig is sole guardian
By order of the Landrecht.
The appeal is decided
The court of appeal rules for Ludwig.
Ludwig dies in Vienna
Karl is his sole heir.
Questions about the Beethoven family tree
Who is on the Beethoven family tree
Fourteen people in three generations, from the grandfather born in 1712 to Johanna, who died in 1868. Ludwig is the centre.
Why the Beethoven family tree marks drink
The grandmother drank and died in a clinic, the father was suspended from service in 1789 and the autopsy of Ludwig found a damaged liver. The last is marked as suspected.
Who won the guardianship of Karl
Ludwig. The Landrecht named him sole guardian in 1816, the Magistrat gave Johanna custody in 1819 and the court of appeal ruled for Ludwig in 1820.
Whether Beethoven had children
He never married and had no children. His nephew Karl was his sole heir.
People and sources
A page of its own lists all 14 people on the chart, each with a short note and the sources for it, and the 12 numbered sources this article cites. It also gives the credits of the portraits and this page as a reference in the APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard styles, ready to copy.