Who is the Most Inbred Habsburg?

The Habsburg Dynasty is among one of the most inbred families to have ever lived. The family boasts some of the most inbred people to have ever lived, and so it's only natural that this video finds its way to my channel. Who was the most inbred Habsburg? Stay tuned to find out!

Music credit: Bensound - Sci Fi

[angelsinger]

Poor Margarita. To be married so young to your uncle-cousin, and lose five of your six children before dying at 21. Truly a tragic life story.

[PiousMoltar]

"Fancied his step-mother"
For a Habsburg, that's an improvement. Although knowing the Habsburgs, his step mother was also still probably his distant cousin. And grandmother. And neice.

[doctoremil]

The crazy thing is that it was obvious to any random peasant how bad inbreeding could be since they could observe its effects in animals, and thus they themselves tried hard to avoid it even in the most remote villages.

[Evan-lrnq]

Thats not a family tree. Thats a family shrub.

[mistingwolf]

And to think that the artisans commissioned to paint all these portraits were likely ordered to make each person look better than they actually did.

[yoongibean]

gave myself a headache trying to read the family trees and figure out the multiple relationship dynamics between everyone 😟

[davinasanchez]

I'm soooo glad someone finally said this! There are so many videos on YouTube framing Charles II as the 'final result' of Hapsburg inbreeding. But he wasn't - the family kept on inbreeding! And some of them were (relatively) healthy too! It's fascinating, and people do history a disservice by glossing over this all.

[sc]

Yeah Charles is so famous because despite not being the most inbred, his being male made the inbreeding way more apparent and resulted it in him affecting his life way more. The reason that there’s a lot of genetic diseases where men are the vast majority of the cases is because the genes for those are usually on the X chromosome, and women with defective genes on the X chromosome have a chance of having a good gene on one of theirs to make up for the faulty one on the other. So that’s one full chromosome that women have way less of a chance of having issues with than men.

Probably also why Cleopatra VII was not only one of the smartest women (if not the smartest woman) in the ancient world who spoke 10+ languages and was able to carry four children to term (granted, with fathers not related to her) when by some estimates she’s twice as inbred as Charles there, who was thought to be infertile, had numerous other health issues, and if I recall was considered not very bright.

[enderbunny]

At this point it's not even a family tree, it's more like a family bowl of spaghetti

[BlackReshiram]

what would you do if you found out youre inbred to any degree?
ill start: never mention that to anyone ever again

[jaynestrange]

I sometimes wonder . . . if what we're seeing are the court portraits painted by artists who probably would have been punished if the subject didn't like how they turned out . . . what must the Hapsburgs have looked like in real life?

[theadoresmith]

Attempting to understand such a genetic mess is pretty difficult. The Japanese game of Sudoku or Newton's Calculus would be easier.

[Dropitlikeitshotspot]

While WE are certainly aware of some of the ramifications of their inbreeding and how dangerously inbred they truly were, the question I have is, were THEY even remotely close to being as aware? Did they even correlate the numerous early deaths and genetic deformities with their inbreeding, or were they simply choosing to ignore it? Were they underestimating the role duplicate DNA played within their abnormalities? I’m aware that they weren’t familiar with what actual DNA was. I’m just curious as to the extent of their knowledge concerning inbreeding and if it had any bearing on their decisions.

[Svartalf]

My be is that the most inbred was not a Habsburg, but a Bourbon. Louis XIV of France and his wife Maria Theresa of Austria were first cousins twice over, and their children had a grand total of 4 great grandparents each. Given the amount of Habsburg in the mix, I present said children as the most inbred.

[malicant]

"Our Liege Lord Hapsburg ruled over his realm with the help of his mother and sister."

"Both of them?"

"They're the same person."

[sarahedwards]

These videos are so fascinating; I breezed through the genetics unit in 11th grade bio.

[wilkbor]

This was a fascinating video. I can't blame someone for being inbred -- you don't get to choose your parents. You can, however, think about your own children and wonder how healthy they might be if you marry a cousin or other close relative. All of this makes me wonder to what extent the people knew about the dangers of inbreeding at the time?

[Beautyinthebreakdown.]

Get so excited when this channel uploads a new video

[arsangelica]

One of the pictures you have for Don Carlos is not Don Carlos, but rather his mother’s brother Joao Manuel of Portugal. The woman you cite when you mention his stepmother is also from the Portuguese house, and not Elisabeth de Valois. And one could be fairer to Don Carlos by mentioning that he was not as bad before the major head injury.
Philip II and Anna of Austria’s children, technically speaking, died of epidemic diseases. Whether they would have survived if their parents were less closely related is speculative. Also, Sissi was a Wittlesbach by birth and her children were inbred more because her husband was related to her than because she was related to her husband. You’re improving, though.

[matthewtopping]

Thanks for the educational and fascinating content. A little bit of advice to make your videos more viewer-friendly:

When you show the horizontally oriented family tree, it's not clear that there is consanguinity. Maybe you should just stick to the vertical genealogy graphs.

When you talk about events in someone's life, maybe it would help to have the approx year appear in the lower right corner. I know we're talking, like, 1700s maybe? It would just clarify things for the viewers.