All About Royal Families

On 5 February 1972 , Mary Elisabeth Donaldson was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.  Source picture: Hasse Nielsen Family Mary was born the youngest of four children to Scottish parents, Henrietta (née Horne), an executive assistant to the vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and  John Dalgleish Donaldson, a mathematics  professor Her paternal grandfather was Captain Peter Donaldson (1911–1978). Mary was named after her grandmothers, Mary Dalgleish and Elizabeth Gibson Melrose, and was born and raised in Hobart, Australia.  Mary has two older sisters, Jane Stephens and Patricia Bailey, and an older brother, John Stuart Donaldson. Her mother died from complications following heart surgery on 20 November 1997 when Mary was 25. In 2001, her father married the British author and novelist Susan Horwood. Education In 1974, Donaldson started schooling in Clear Lake City Elementary School in Houston, Texas, where her father was working and moved to Sandy Ba...

Abdullah was born on 30 January 1962 at Palestine Hospital in Amman, to King Hussein and Hussein's British-born second wife, Princess Muna Al-Hussein (born Antoinette Avril Gardiner). He is the namesake of his paternal great-grandfather, Abdullah I, who founded modern Jordan. King Hussein and his wife Queen Muna Family Abdullah's dynasty, the Hashemites, ruled Mecca for over 700 years—from the 10th century until the House of Saud conquered Mecca in 1925—and have ruled Jordan since 1921. The Hashemites are the oldest ruling dynasty in the Muslim world.  According to family tradition, Abdullah is the 41st-generation agnatic descendant of Muhammad's daughter Fatimah and her husband, Ali, the fourth Rashidun caliph. As Hussein's eldest son, Abdullah became heir apparent to the Jordanian throne under the 1952 constitution.Political instability caused King Hussein to appoint an adult heir in his place, choosing Abdullah's uncle Prince Hassan in 1965. Abdullah has four bro...

Stamp of Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway Born on 21 January 2004 at 9:13 am in The National Hospital, part of the Oslo University Hospital in Oslo, Princess Ingrid Alexandra is the first child and only daughter of Crown Prince Haakon, heir apparent to the throne, and the second granddaughter of King Harald V and Queen Sonja.  Her mother, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has a son named Marius Borg Høiby, born in 1997 from a previous relationship.Following Ingrid Alexandra's birth, the already well-regarded royal family experienced an upsurge of popularity. Ingrid Alexandra was baptised by Bishop Gunnar Stålsett in the chapel of the Royal Palace on 17 April 2004. Her grandfather the King, her aunt Princess Märtha Louise, the Crown Prince of Denmark, the Crown Princess of Sweden, the then Prince of Asturias, and her maternal grandmother Marit Tjessem were her godparents. The Crown Prince of Denmark and the Prince of Asturias were unable to attend the christening due to their resp...