More Black family tree

[snorkackcatcher]

Article here at the Leaky.

Quick throughts before going off to work:

(1) Sirius' parents really were cousins, albeit second cousins? Cool. Toujours Pur is still canon-compatible a little bit longer. :)

(2) If Charlus and Dorea really were James' parents, then (*counts on fingers*) if I'm reading this correctly, that would make James and Sirius first cousins once removed, Harry and Sirius second cousins?

Comments

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

I'm having a hard time reading it because a stupid ad keeps flashing in the middle of my screen. But...

If Charlus and Dorea were James's parents, which I'm not QUITE willing to accept, but maybe, since JKR did specify that it was a son, and there aren't any other living relatives for Harry, would James be a scorch mark? I assume that Mrs. Black was still alive in 1979 or whenever it was that James married Lily, and by all rights, if Andromeda is a scorchmark for marrying Ted, James should be one as well.

Would this also make Ron and Harry related, albeit distantly? My knowledge of geneology is pretty bad.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Would this also make Ron and Harry related, albeit distantly?

Maybe. Sirius says that Arthur is his second cousin once removed, meaning the great-grandparent of one is the great-great-grandparent of the other, but we don't know who this person is, so we can't tell if Dorea is also descended from this common ancestor or not.

[snorkackcatcher]

If 'all the pure-bloods are related' I suppose Ron and Harry pretty much have to be distantly related, maybe third or fourth cousins once or twice removed or something like that? (By the time you get that far out, mind you, you might as well call yourselves unrelated. The shared bloodline is absolutely minimal.)

[snorkackcatcher]

I'm not sure James would even be on there in the first place, actually -- apart from Draco (because current generation?) it only seems to show the people who actually bore the name Black. The kids of the Black daughters are just shown as "xs, yd". You might wonder why Dorea wasn't blasted off for taking in Sirius when Alphard was, though -- I suppose you'd have to argue that Mrs Black didn't know where he'd gone or didn't care. (Or Alphard could always have done something else to offend her. Be a werewolf, for example. :D)

If all the pure-bloods are related I suppose Ron and Harry pretty much have to be distantly related, probably third or fourth cousins, like anybody keeps track. (Even Sirius wasn't entirely sure exactly what relation he was to Arthur and Molly.)

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

It was the werewolf thing. Definitely the werewolf :) (Why is it the characterizations I like never actually get ripped off? I could handle reading more werewolf!Alphard fics.)

I wondered about the molecular orbital theory of expressing kids as well. What I really wondered is was that how it appears on the actual tree in canon? Or is that JKR saying "hmmm. These people are not remotely important, I won't bother to make up names for them." Hard to say, really. If you're going to bother with a fancy tapestry, you'd probably bother with the names. Interesting, regardless. And I'll probably still ignore it for purposes of fics anyway. Heh.

[snorkackcatcher]

I'm not sure how old families actually do their family trees? It was labelled the blah blah 'House of Black', and if you included all the related families it could get way out of hand very quickly, so I'd guess that mostly it just shows the Blacks and the current generation. (Draco is pretty much the male heir AFAICT.)

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Hee! My random choice of a Rosier for Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Andromeda's mother was right! Of course, I used that to explain why Narcissa looked so different from the rest of her family, but that's neither here nor there. I do still wish JKR had given her grey eyes.

And the three brothers Black still works too. Phew. As does Sirius' parents being cousins. ::snerk::

I'm still a bit leery of the Potter connection. Surely *someone* would have mentioned it by now if James (and by extension Harry) was that closely related to Sirius?

[snorkackcatcher]

I'm still a bit leery of the Potter connection. Surely *someone* would have mentioned it by now if James (and by extension Harry) was that closely related to Sirius?

That gives me pause too -- but Harry's been left ignorant of a whole lot of things for plot reasons, including virtually everything about James and Lily, let alone his grandparents, so it's possible. I suppose the argument could be that Sirius would be related to Harry in about the same way as he was related to Arthur, and he was rather vague about that, maybe he was the sort of person who either just didn't keep track and/or assumed that most of the people he knew would be interrelated in some way because of the nature of the wizarding world?

[cassieverte.livejournal.com]

I think we see a lot of names we'll recognize (Bulstrode, Burke, Longbottom, Crouch) just to prove the point that the wizarding pure-blood world is very small.

If Harry's grandparents were on the family tree, when he and Sirius discussed it, I'm certain it would have come up. I mean he was righ there with Harry, wouldn't he have pointed it out? Isn't it surprising enough that Harry noticed the Malfoy's on the tree, but not his own family name?

[snorkackcatcher]

Fair point. If it is Harry grandparents (toss of a coin there) you'd have to argue that he and Sirius were just glancing at it, and that Sirius couldn't remember who was and wasn't on there afer all that time, so just mentioned names he happened to spot.

Come on Jo, tell us these things, dammit. :)

[flutteringazure.livejournal.com]

If you look at the dates though, it's difficult to believe that Dorea and Charlus are Harry's grandparents. According to JKR:

James's parents were elderly, were getting on a little when he was born, which explains the only child, very pampered, had-him-late-in-life-so-he's-an-extra-treasure, as often happens, I think. They were old in wizarding terms, and they died. They succumbed to a wizarding illness.

If the Dorea and Charlus in the drawing are Harry's grandparents, Dorea would have given birth to James when she was 40 or thereabouts (according to Lexicon timelines, giving James a bd around 1959/60). For a non-magical woman that would mean "getting on" if we are talking in terms of fertility, for magical women... I don't know. Doesn't seem to correspond with the portrayal of someone like Minerva McGonnagal who is "old" in non-magical terms but still in the midst of her life in the magical world.

Also, Dorea died when she was 57, which does not exactly correspond to JKR's comment of the Potter grandparents being "old in wizarding terms". The "wizarding illness" might make sense but dying of old age doesn't...

[snorkackcatcher]

That's the thing which bothers me about the theory too, but then JKR's original comment doesn't quite make sense either, unless you take the 'old in wizarding terms' to refer to their age at the birth of James. And her biggest weakness, as she admits, is numbers and dates (cf several odd datings in HBP). She may just have not worked this out.

The trouble is, if their son isn't James, then we have another Potter of about his age or a bit older that we've never previously heard of -- and Harry is supposed to be 'the last of the Potters'. Of course this other Potter could be dead (maybe killed in the war) but we would expect to have heard of him. Either way, in fact, there's something we (and Harry) should have been told about!

On reflection, I'd rate it about 6-4 on that the "1s" is James. :)

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Dunno -- I think the whole family could have gotten bumped off in the first war, a la the Boneses and the Mackinnons. It seems reasonable enough that nobody would bother to mention to Harry, more than a decade after the fact, that he had some distant cousins who were murdered by Voldemort before he was born.

I haven't a clue whether he's James. I'm going to wait until JKR tells us.

[snorkackcatcher]

Fair enough. :)