UK: The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

Sixty years ago today, Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne, and her Diamond Jubilee takes place during 2012.

Although she came to the throne on this day in 1952, her coronation took place on June 2, 1953.

Queen Elizabeth II is the male-line great-granddaughter of Edward VII, who inherited the crown from his mother, Queen Victoria. His father, Victoria’s consort, was Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Queen Elizabeth is a patrilineal descendant of Albert’s family, the German House of Wettin. This princely house claims other notables, such as King Albert II of Belgium and former King Simeon II of Bulgaria.

Elizabeth’s male-line ancestry goes back to Conrad the Greatof Meissen; see Patrilineal descent of Elizabeth II.

Through Victoria – and several of her great-great-grandparents, Elizabeth is directly descended from many British royals:

House of Stuart: Mary, Queen of Scots, Robert the Bruce, and earlier Scottish royal houses.

• House of Tudor, and earlier English royal houses as far as the 7th century House of Wessex; one member of Wessex was Aethelflaed of Wessex‘s younger sister, Elfthryth.

As Queen Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter, she is related to the heads of most other reigning and former European royal houses. Via her great-grandmother Queen Alexandra, she descends from the Danish royal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, of the North German house of Oldenburg, one of the oldest European lines.

Glücksburg also claims Elizabeth’s husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; Margrethe II of Denmark, Harald V of Norway, Queen Sofia of Spain and former King Constantine II of Greece. All of them descend from Queen Victoria. Elizabeth has many cousins, including King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Victoria’s great-great-grandson.

She’s also descended from Johan Willem Friso, Prince of Orange (1687–1711), the most recent common ancestor to all reigning European royal houses.

Her lineage ethnicities include Armenian, Arab, Chinese,  Cuman, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Monegasque, Norwegian, Old Prussian, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish and Yugoslavian.

The Diamond Jubilee weekend celebration – June 2-5, 2012 – is coordinated by Buckingham Palace, which is also responsible for her program during the entire year.

This year, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will visit England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while other Royal Family members will also travel throughout the UK and overseas.

Click here to see Queen’s family tree (screenshot below).

Click the image to see the family tree.

Sources: wikipedia