The Catherine the Great family tree, from Zerbst to the Romanov throne

Catherine was born Sophie Auguste Friederike at Stettin on 2 May 1729.^1,3 Her father, Christian August, was Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, and her mother, Johanna Elisabeth, came from the house of Holstein-Gottorp.¹ Her brother Friedrich August was born in 1734.

The house of her mother is the key to the Catherine the Great family tree. Peter III belonged to the same house through his father, so the bride and groom were second cousins.⁴ In 1758, during the Seven Years War, Johanna and her son went into exile in Paris, where she died in 1760.⁶

Peter III was born at Kiel on 21 February 1728. His father was Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and his mother was Anna Petrovna, the eldest daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I.¹ Anna died of puerperal fever at Kiel a few days after his birth.⁷

Her younger sister Elizabeth seized the throne in 1741 and declared her nephew her heir.¹² When he fell gravely ill in the autumn of 1743, she feared that the line of Peter the Great would die out, and she chose a bride for him.¹ Sophie reached Moscow in February 1744, took the name Catherine Alexeievna and married Peter on 1 September 1745.^1,3

Their son Paul was born on 1 October 1754. The Deutsche Biographie names one son and a daughter who died young.^5,1 In the first edition of her memoirs, Catherine strongly implied that Paul was the son of Sergei Saltykov and not of Peter. The Catherine the Great family tree draws Paul as the son of the marriage, as the court recorded him.⁴

Elizabeth died on 5 January 1762, and Peter became emperor. Six months later Catherine took power in a revolt, and Peter was taken to Ropsha, where he died on 17 July 1762.¹ The Deutsche Biographie says he was murdered. Another account gives a fit of apoplexy during a quarrel with a jailer.^1,5

Catherine also had a son by Grigory Orlov, Alexei Bobrinsky, born in 1762. He was raised near Tula, away from the court, and Paul later made him a count.⁴ He is not drawn, since the chart keeps to the marriages and the line of the throne.

Paul married twice, and both wives stand beside him on the Catherine the Great family tree. His first wife, Natalia Alexeievna, born Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, married him in 1773 and died in April 1776.⁸ Later that year he married Maria Feodorovna, born Sophie Dorothee of Württemberg, who was born at Stettin like Catherine.²

Catherine reigned for thirty-four years and died in November 1796.¹ Paul reigned from 1796 to 1801.² On the night of 23 March 1801 officers who were trying to force his abdication killed him in a struggle.⁵

The Deutsche Biographie lists four sons and five daughters of Paul and Maria Feodorovna. The Catherine the Great family tree shows the four sons, because the crown passed between them.²

Alexander I, born in 1777, married Louise of Baden in 1793 and reigned from 1801.² He died at Taganrog on 1 December 1825.¹⁰ Constantine, born in 1779, was heir to his brother, but he had renounced the throne in secret. The article on him gives 1823 in one place and 1822 in another. The confusion over the succession became the pretext of the Decembrist revolt.⁹

The crown went to Nicholas I, born at Gatchina in July 1796, a few months before Catherine died. He had married Charlotte of Prussia in 1817.^2,11 Michael, the youngest, married Charlotte of Württemberg in 1824.²