Verbose
Deity
Hm...
I've got second cousins who are noble. Weird bit that. Their mother is a noblewoman, and her offspring have been given permission to adopt the family name, coat of arms etc. by the House of Lords in Stockholm in order to ensure that the lineage lives on. (No male heirs.)
So, relatively close relatives who are noble, but it's not a direct blood relation.
Got distant noble ancestors too (my gran'dad was a family history fanatic):
There's a bunch of noblemen further back in history. Most distinguished: Field Marshal Simon Grundel Helmfeldt, started life as Simon Grundel, the son of the mayor of Stockholm, a wealthy German silkmerchant named Jakob Grundel.
Simon went to the army as an engineer and artillery officer with Lennart Torstensson's arty. He got his education in the Netherlands in time to join the army for the battle of Breitenfeld, 1631.
He served the rest of the Swedish 30 years war to 1648. He was brigade general in Charles X invasion of Poland in the 1650's.
By the 1670's Simon Grundel had been ennobled as Grundel Helmfeldt, and become a full field marshall. He commanded the Swedish infantry at the battle of Lund in 1676:
Battle of Lund, the first srious attempt by Denmark to retake the three counties ceded to Sweden in the peace of 1658. It was one of the bloodiest battle fought in its era. Approx. 20.000+ on both sides. 5000 Danes killed outright. 4000 Swedes. I.e. between 20 and 25% of the participants killed in one battle, figuers unheard of at the time. Mostly due to the fact the the 19 year old king after beating the Danish cav. set of in pursuit of them instead of immediately cutting into the Danish infantry, which would have quickly ended the battle. Towards the evening he returned to the battlefield and realised that the battle was still going on. Swedish victory nonetheless.
There's also a whole noble family Roos af Hjelmsäter, which died out on the male side in the late 18th c., but on the female side continued directly to my paternal grandmother. (The family became priests for generations insted.) There's even a trilogy of historical novels about these ancestors of mine in the 18th c. by a woman named Anna Lorenz. They are crap, unfortunately.
These Roos af Hjelmsäter were originally a Norwegian noble family intermarried with the old Norwegian royal family descending from Harald Hårfager ("Harald the Fair Haired" or somesuch, 9th c.). The first historical date for it is from 1314, but they were around before. They seem to have had a falling out with king Erik Blood Ax ("Blodyx) and when Norway became to dangerous they turned themselves into a Swedish noble family.
One of these Roos af Hjelmsäter (Axel) was part of king Charles XII's bodyguard and was featured in some of the heroic nationalistic litterature of the late 19th c. (Heidenstam's "Karolinerna", och i "Kalabaliken i Bender" i "Svenskarna och deras hövdingar".)
His father commanded one of the infantry regiments trying to break out of the Russian encirclement at Pultava in 1707. 14.000 Swedish infantry with no ammo and no arty in a bayonet charge against 60.000 entrenched Russians with plenty of ammo and 60 pieces of field artillery. The charge failed (duh), and they ended up in Russian captivity.
On top of that I've got this distant ancestor who was a Scotish nobleman, colonel Alexander Anderson (Anderson, dependant clan to Clan Ross) marrid to a noblewoman who was a Sinclair of Mourtel.
This guy was one of the highlanders that took service in the Swedish army in the 30-years war and then made a life for himself in Sweden. (Theres' a whole slew of Swedish noble families named things like Ramsey, Munro, Sinclair, Key, Johnstone etc.)
That's the Swedish part of my family. No idea about the rest...
I've got second cousins who are noble. Weird bit that. Their mother is a noblewoman, and her offspring have been given permission to adopt the family name, coat of arms etc. by the House of Lords in Stockholm in order to ensure that the lineage lives on. (No male heirs.)
So, relatively close relatives who are noble, but it's not a direct blood relation.
Got distant noble ancestors too (my gran'dad was a family history fanatic):
There's a bunch of noblemen further back in history. Most distinguished: Field Marshal Simon Grundel Helmfeldt, started life as Simon Grundel, the son of the mayor of Stockholm, a wealthy German silkmerchant named Jakob Grundel.
Simon went to the army as an engineer and artillery officer with Lennart Torstensson's arty. He got his education in the Netherlands in time to join the army for the battle of Breitenfeld, 1631.
He served the rest of the Swedish 30 years war to 1648. He was brigade general in Charles X invasion of Poland in the 1650's.
By the 1670's Simon Grundel had been ennobled as Grundel Helmfeldt, and become a full field marshall. He commanded the Swedish infantry at the battle of Lund in 1676:
Battle of Lund, the first srious attempt by Denmark to retake the three counties ceded to Sweden in the peace of 1658. It was one of the bloodiest battle fought in its era. Approx. 20.000+ on both sides. 5000 Danes killed outright. 4000 Swedes. I.e. between 20 and 25% of the participants killed in one battle, figuers unheard of at the time. Mostly due to the fact the the 19 year old king after beating the Danish cav. set of in pursuit of them instead of immediately cutting into the Danish infantry, which would have quickly ended the battle. Towards the evening he returned to the battlefield and realised that the battle was still going on. Swedish victory nonetheless.
There's also a whole noble family Roos af Hjelmsäter, which died out on the male side in the late 18th c., but on the female side continued directly to my paternal grandmother. (The family became priests for generations insted.) There's even a trilogy of historical novels about these ancestors of mine in the 18th c. by a woman named Anna Lorenz. They are crap, unfortunately.
These Roos af Hjelmsäter were originally a Norwegian noble family intermarried with the old Norwegian royal family descending from Harald Hårfager ("Harald the Fair Haired" or somesuch, 9th c.). The first historical date for it is from 1314, but they were around before. They seem to have had a falling out with king Erik Blood Ax ("Blodyx) and when Norway became to dangerous they turned themselves into a Swedish noble family.
One of these Roos af Hjelmsäter (Axel) was part of king Charles XII's bodyguard and was featured in some of the heroic nationalistic litterature of the late 19th c. (Heidenstam's "Karolinerna", och i "Kalabaliken i Bender" i "Svenskarna och deras hövdingar".)
His father commanded one of the infantry regiments trying to break out of the Russian encirclement at Pultava in 1707. 14.000 Swedish infantry with no ammo and no arty in a bayonet charge against 60.000 entrenched Russians with plenty of ammo and 60 pieces of field artillery. The charge failed (duh), and they ended up in Russian captivity.
On top of that I've got this distant ancestor who was a Scotish nobleman, colonel Alexander Anderson (Anderson, dependant clan to Clan Ross) marrid to a noblewoman who was a Sinclair of Mourtel.
This guy was one of the highlanders that took service in the Swedish army in the 30-years war and then made a life for himself in Sweden. (Theres' a whole slew of Swedish noble families named things like Ramsey, Munro, Sinclair, Key, Johnstone etc.)
That's the Swedish part of my family. No idea about the rest...
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, no generals yet) and several American
. Of course there is my Prussian hero 
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