Old dynasties... still 'alive'?

Well, it is not to lead at ATL work per se for NOW, but I bet it could be usefull... Not sure where it belonged though - may be before 1900 in some cases, or Non Political Chat, so... move as needed.

I was wondering now and then about some dynasties of old in various countries, that made history... Many faded in history... but, it is? totaly? Is there distant modern descendants for some lines?

The most talked case around is for the last byzantine dynasty... possibly remaining in the Romanov line, or a british girl who died in 17th century, whom nearly nothing is known about.

And others? In my mind, I was thinking of eastern dynasties specially, like Qing (Pu Yi had a descant(s), or relatives?), Ming (anyone could claim the title?)... Or in the complex case of Japan, the 'Court Nobles' (Yamato line of the Emperor and others), and the Feudal lords (like Shoguns)... Are the Fujiwara who ruled effectively from Emperors still alive by example; does the Tokugawa shogunal clan have modern descendants?

Any ancient noble lines still more or less 'alive', or surviving in some ways?
 
Visit the pretenders section on the Regnal Chronologies website. The owner has traced through a number of dispossessed dynasties to their current claimant.
 
Visit the pretenders section on the Regnal Chronologies website. The owner has traced through a number of dispossessed dynasties to their current claimant.

They're wrong with the Byzantines, though (listing them as another one for Otto/Karl von Habsburg).

But as for the actual Byzantine (genealogical) claim... let's get a few things straight first.
If the Romanovs did indeed claim it, it was completely unrelated to genealogy - they were not descended from the Byzantines at all (at leats not the early Romanovs). The 16th-century Rurikovichi were (through a woman referred to as either Zoe or Sophie Palaiologina, who married one of the Muscovite princes), but the Romanovs' genealogical relations to them didn't include that part.
That whole "17th-century British girl" thing is both very obscure and very confusing. Let's leave it at that.
And just in case: the genealogical relations that resulted into the actual Byzantine heir are so complicated and obscure that the actual heir probably doesn't even know that he is one (or maybe even that he has any Byzantine ancestry at all). As such, the word "claimant" is a little inappropriate here.

That done, let's give it a try.
Zoe aka Sophie Palaiologina had an older sister, Helene, whose (and not Zoe's) descendants are indeed the likely heirs of the Byzantine emperors.
Helene married Lazar Brankovic of Serbia; they had several daughters, who married and had more daughters, and it takes several more generations for the whole thing to settle into a reasonable male-ish line (it does, though, by the time when that line comes into the inheritance).
The current heir: the Prince of Montemiletto. I don't currently have any more information (it's in other files), and I never really had an idea just what the heck Montemiletto even is, but just in case some of you know :)

That all, of course, means that Zoe's line stays out. It didn't, IOTL, so something might be wrong. It can be the whole "daughters of daughters" thing which made the line a little hard to follow, but just in case let's look at the next line... and it's not Montferrat (which diverged a little too early).
The next line, just so you know, is that of Gattilusi, the Lesbian Despots as they were jokingly called at the Russian forum (actually just the Despots of Lesbos).
However, its highly-branching nature means that following the line anywhere past the 16th century becomes nigh-impossible very early on. Something that doesn't really help is that about the only site with a decent genealogy of that family (rather than a few select branches) is that of Malta Genealogy, which for obvious reasons is notably slanted towards people who actually lived in Malta (and by that, I mean that three of the four lines I was able to get past 17th century with that site's info ended with people from Malta - IMHO an unlikely coincidence at the very least).
I might try to contact some of the likely heirs and/or heir relatives (like Julia Coronelli... okay, she probably won't say anything because she seems to be offended by any mentions that her family is somehow Greek), but that seems like a hopeless venture. Pity. :(


...So what, how? ;)
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