ACTIVITY / CHALLENGE

Family photographs

Photograph of members of Queen Victoria's family

In her later years, Queen Victoria was known as the ‘Grandmother of Europe’ because many of her nine children and numerous grandchildren married into Europe’s royal families. Royal family photographs often included the many generations (grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren) together in one image, just like the one below.

Photographs can be used to illustrate your family tree, depicting the different generations in your family, just like in this postcard showing the family tree of Queen Victoria’s son, King Edward VII.

Postcard showing  three generations of the royal family including King Edward VII
Postcard showing three generations of the royal family, 1903 Copyright: Royal Collection Enterprises Limited

The portraits at the top show the first generation of the royal family in 1903: King Edward VII and his wife, Queen Alexandra; the bottom two photographs are of the second generation: their son, the future King George V, with his wife, the future Queen Mary; and the oval in the middle contains a portrait of the third generation, Prince Edward of York, later King Edward VIII.

Why not try copying this design to create a family tree of the generations in your family, or in your house?


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