Romanov Family Tree: Nicholas II, Alexei and Queen Victoria

The key

How to read this Romanov family tree

Read the Romanov family tree from the top down, one generation to a row. The key under the chart names every mark, and Nicholas II is the centre, drawn with a double ring.

Russia kept the old Julian calendar until 1918. The chart gives every date in the Gregorian calendar, so Lex dates the birth of Nicholas to 6 May 1868 and the chart to 18 May.⁴

A filled mark is haemophilia
Alexei and his uncle Friedrich of Hesse carry the mark for haemophilia.

Russia and Hesse

The two families on the Romanov family tree

The left half of the chart is Russian. Alexander III reigned from 1881 to 1894 and married Maria Feodorovna, born Princess Dagmar of Denmark.⁵^,6 Of their six children, Alexander died as an infant, George was heir from 1894 until his death in 1899 and Michael was offered the crown in 1917.¹⁸^,17^,16

The right half is the family of the grand dukes of Hesse at Darmstadt. Princess Alice, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, married Louis IV of Hesse.¹^,8 They had seven children. Alice died of diphtheria in December 1878, a month after her daughter Marie died in the same outbreak.⁹^,21^,14

Portrait of Queen Victoria — The line of haemophilia on the Romanov family tree, from the portraits on the chart.

Portrait of Princess Alice — The line of haemophilia on the Romanov family tree, from the portraits on the chart.

1894

Nicholas and Alix join the two branches

Nicholas II became emperor in 1894 on the death of his father.⁴ He married Alix of Hesse on 26 November 1894, less than four weeks after the death of Alexander III. She joined the Russian Orthodox Church and took the name Alexandra Feodorovna.¹⁴

Queen Victoria had chosen the tutors of Alix after the death of her mother.¹⁴ Her sister Elisabeth had already married Grand Duke Sergei, an uncle of Nicholas.¹¹

1895 to 1904

Four daughters and an heir

Nicholas and Alexandra had four daughters before a son. Olga was born in 1895, Tatiana in 1897, Maria in 1899 and Anastasia in 1901.²²^,3 The birth of Alexei in August 1904 gave the throne a son as its heir.¹³ The five children stand on the bottom row of the Romanov family tree.

Nicholas II and his family in 1913, from left to right Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei and Tatiana. — The foot of the Romanov family tree in 1913, from left to right Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexei and Tatiana. The original print is in the Hermitage Museum. Boasson and Eggler, St Petersburg, 1913, public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

From Queen Victoria

Alexei’s haemophilia and the link to Queen Victoria

Haemophilia is carried on the X chromosome and usually affects boys.¹³ Queen Victoria was a carrier. Her son Leopold had the disease, and her daughter Alice carried it to Hesse.¹⁵^,13

The first sign in Hesse was Friedrich, the second son of Alice, whose cut ear bled for three days in 1873. In May of that year he fell from a window at Darmstadt and died hours later.¹⁵

Alix carried the same inheritance to Russia. Soon after his birth Alexei bled from the navel for hours, and his blood did not clot. In October 1912 a bleed into his thigh at Spała brought him near death.¹³ The empress came to trust Grigori Rasputin to help her son, a trust that became a political scandal.¹⁴ Genetic tests on his remains, published in 2009, showed that the disease was haemophilia B.¹³

The Romanov family tree marks only the two boys who had the disease, and not the women who carried it.

The end of the line

Abdication, Yekaterinburg and the survivors

Nicholas abdicated in March 1917, for himself and for Alexei, in favour of his brother Michael, who declined the crown.⁴^,3 At the end of April 1918 the family was moved to the Ipatiev House at Yekaterinburg. In the early hours of 17 July 1918 Nicholas, Alexandra and their five children were shot there with members of their household.³ Michael had been killed near Perm in June, and Elisabeth was killed at Alapayevsk on the next day.¹⁶^,11

DNA tests in 1993 identified five of the bodies, and a second grave with two more children was found in 2007.³^,13 In 2000 the Russian Orthodox Church declared the family saints.³

Maria Feodorovna left Russia in 1919 and died in Denmark in 1928.⁶ Xenia left in 1919 and died in London, and Olga Alexandrovna left in 1920 and died in Toronto.¹⁹^,7 Victoria of Hesse became the grandmother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.²⁰ Irene married Prince Henry of Prussia.¹²

Everyone on the chart

Who is who on the Romanov family tree

Who was alive

All 24 people on the chart are listed.

The people on the chart, in the order of its rows.
Portrait	Person	Years	Life
	Prince AlbertHusband of Queen Victoria	1819–1861	Prince Consort from 1857. Sources2
	Queen VictoriaQueen of the United Kingdom	1819–1901	Grandmother of Alix and a carrier of haemophilia. Sources1 13
	Alexander IIIEmperor of Russia, 1881 to 1894	1845–1894	Father of Nicholas II. Sources5
	Maria FeodorovnaEmpress, born Dagmar of Denmark	1847–1928	She left Russia in 1919 and died in Denmark. Sources6
	Louis IV of HesseGrand Duke of Hesse	1837–1892	Father of Alix. Sources8
	Princess AliceGrand Duchess of Hesse	1843–1878	She died of diphtheria in 1878. Sources1 9
AA	Alexander AlexandrovichSecond son of Alexander III	1869–1870	He died at ten months. Sources18
	George AlexandrovichHeir from 1894 to 1899	1871–1899	Heir until his own death. Sources17
	Xenia AlexandrovnaSister of Nicholas II	1875–1960	She left Russia in 1919 and died in London. Sources19
	Michael AlexandrovichBrother of Nicholas II	1878–1918	Killed near Perm in 1918. Sources16
	Olga AlexandrovnaSister of Nicholas II	1882–1960	She died in Toronto. Sources7
	Nicholas IIEmperor of Russia, 1894 to 1917	1868–1918	The last emperor, killed at Yekaterinburg. Sources3 4
	Alexandra FeodorovnaEmpress, born Alix of Hesse	1872–1918	Granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Sources14
	Victoria of HesseMarchioness of Milford Haven	1863–1950	Grandmother of Prince Philip. Sources20
	Elisabeth of HesseGrand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna	1864–1918	Killed at Alapayevsk in 1918. Sources11
	Irene of HessePrincess Henry of Prussia	1866–1953	She married Prince Henry of Prussia. Sources12
	Ernest LouisGrand Duke of Hesse from 1892	1868–1937	Grand duke on the death of his father. Sources10
	Friedrich of HesseSon of Princess Alice	1870–1873	He had haemophilia and died after a fall in 1873. Sources15
	Marie of HesseYoungest child of Alice	1874–1878	She died of diphtheria in 1878. Sources21
	Olga NikolaevnaEldest daughter of Nicholas II	1895–1918	Killed with her family in 1918. Sources3 22
	Tatiana NikolaevnaSecond daughter of Nicholas II	1897–1918	Killed with her family in 1918. Sources3
	Maria NikolaevnaThird daughter of Nicholas II	1899–1918	Killed with her family in 1918. Sources3
	Anastasia NikolaevnaYoungest daughter of Nicholas II	1901–1918	Killed with her family in 1918. Sources3
	Alexei NikolaevichTsesarevich, heir to the throne	1904–1918	He had haemophilia B, inherited through his mother. Sources13

Asked often

Questions about the Romanov family tree

How Nicholas II was related to Queen Victoria

He was not her descendant. On the Romanov family tree his wife Alix was her granddaughter, the daughter of Princess Alice, so their five children were great-grandchildren of the queen.

Reference

People and sources

A page of its own lists the 22 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.

Open the people and sources

The Romanov family tree of Nicholas II and his children

The Romanov family tree of Nicholas II