Tangled Family Tree

"If you wannabe a Summers

You have got to live

Through time travel, death, and cloning,

But that's the way it is."

- X-Men filk, to the tune of "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls

Tropes like Luke I Am Your Father, Family Relationship Switcheroo, Separated At Birth, Everyone Is Related, My Own Grampa, Cain and Abel And Seth and the Evil Twin make for drama, and they're an easy way of shaking up the dynamics of a long-running series. Sometimes a little too easy. Layer too many of those tropes onto the same group of characters, and what you end up with is a Tangled Family Tree. This isn't just a Dysfunctional Family, this is a family with members so numerous, relationships so tangled, and circumstances so bizarre that it's impossible to keep track of them without a flow chart.

Tangled Family Trees are commonly seen in comics and soap operas, both of which have long-running continuities focusing on one group of characters through decades of changing hands from writer to writer. It is also a common phenomenon in mythology, folklore, and oral traditions for much the same reasons (with "long running continuities" being measured in centuries, and different "writers", including oral retellings by people who may or may not have been literate). Indeed, tropes like Continuity Snarl and the Tangled Family Tree happening in modern works of fiction can help us understand exactly how ancient mythology evolved. Incest, time travel, cloning and genetic engineering, and Alternate Universes can all contribute to creating a Tangled Family Tree. For obvious reasons, any family with a Tangled Family Tree is likely to be a Big Screwed Up Family as well. Often this is a Continuity Snarl looking for a place to happen, as sometimes a single geneology can become so complex that even the writers can't keep it straight. This is the kind of family that you want to in-breed just to consolidate the branches.

Compare One Degree of Separation, Everyone Is Related.

SPOILER WARNING. These convoluted relationships tend to be tied in with every event in the plot, especially the family secrets.

Anime & Manga

 * Tenchi Muyo: This says it all, really.... Words do not exist to refer to most of those familial ties. Most likely, if the people involved didn't all live so damn long (or possess magical symbiotic trees), the extended Juraian royal family would have traits that make the Habsburg Chin look positively normal.
 * That doesn't even get into the alternate universes, including one featuring Tenchi's half-brother.
 * And when we add to the fact that the Tenchi Solution was applied, that tree implodes and reshapes into something only understandable by Abdul Alhazred.
 * In the 2003 anime version of Fullmetal Alchemist, Ed and Al . Ed lost his arm and leg to the process, and Al lost his entire body.   who taught Ed and Al alchemy.
 * There's also  who is  and whose mother was  who created  and tried to  so that Ed would fall in love with her.
 * Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle has a family loop- the main character is  Explaining the complicatedness further would require a massive wall of text and an intimate understanding of both Cardcaptor Sakura and cross-multiversal genetics.
 * The  in Rah Xephon. Explaining it would spoil the show so you've been warned. The short version of it is that
 * Mahou Sensei Negima has one of these, once you bring all the relationships between the characters into it. A rough chart of these relationships looks like this. Even if one would remove everything but the romantic and family ties, it would still be a mess.
 * Naturally, time travel and the creation of sentient robots factor into this. If you think about it hard enough, you can actually make a case that Negi is Chachamaru's great-great-etc grandfather.
 * Boys Empire: The Tamura family tree looks a little like a tumbleweed by the end.
 * Let's map the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha family tree, which can be quite a doozy due to all the clones, adoptions, and miscellaneous Artificial Human-related goodness. First there's the Takamachi family with Nanoha, who's now the mother of Vivio, who's now also the daughter of Fate, who in addition to being the daughter of Precia, is also the daughter of Lindy, connecting her to the Harlaown family which includes Chrono, Amy, Erio, and Caro., who has romantic ties with Klaus Ingvalt, the person Einhart was reincarnated from. creator-father is Jail Scaglietti, who is also the creator-father of the Numbers, four of which are now , and is also the creator-father of Zest's clone, who was the father figure of both Lutecia and Agito. He was also the co-creator of .  been adopted into the Yagami family, which includes Hayate, Reinforce Zwei, and the Wolkenritter. Speaking of the Wolkenritter, it includes Signum, who is implied to be  and thus the person she was born from. Incidentally, Reinforce Zwei was born from the Linker Core organ of both Hayate and Reinforce Eins . Back to the Nakajimas, Subaru and Teana seems to have romantic ties, and Subaru was going to adopt . All clear? Good.
 * In Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, Yep.
 * Boys Empire: The Tamura family tree looks a little like a tumbleweed by the end.
 * Let's map the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha family tree, which can be quite a doozy due to all the clones, adoptions, and miscellaneous Artificial Human-related goodness. First there's the Takamachi family with Nanoha, who's now the mother of Vivio, who's now also the daughter of Fate, who in addition to being the daughter of Precia, is also the daughter of Lindy, connecting her to the Harlaown family which includes Chrono, Amy, Erio, and Caro., who has romantic ties with Klaus Ingvalt, the person Einhart was reincarnated from. creator-father is Jail Scaglietti, who is also the creator-father of the Numbers, four of which are now , and is also the creator-father of Zest's clone, who was the father figure of both Lutecia and Agito. He was also the co-creator of .  been adopted into the Yagami family, which includes Hayate, Reinforce Zwei, and the Wolkenritter. Speaking of the Wolkenritter, it includes Signum, who is implied to be  and thus the person she was born from. Incidentally, Reinforce Zwei was born from the Linker Core organ of both Hayate and Reinforce Eins . Back to the Nakajimas, Subaru and Teana seems to have romantic ties, and Subaru was going to adopt . All clear? Good.
 * In Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, Yep.

Comic Books

 * The Summers family of the Marvel Universe is a massive Continuity Snarl to itself, and is so convoluted that at this point Scott Summers may in fact be his own grandfather. No fewer than four characters in the main continuity of the X-Men comics can be said to be the child of Scott Summers, only one of whom (Cable) was actually born during the timeline of the main Marvel Universe, and none of whom are more than about ten years younger than their parents (including Cable, who is, due to the massive amount of Time Travel in his backstory, at least ten years older than his parents). Add to that Scott's brother Alex, their long-lost father (the space pirate Corsair), and the supervillain-ruler-of-a-galactic-empire Third Summers Brother (Vulcan), and the whole thing is just one big mess. Ironically, Scott started out as an orphan with no known family.
 * And it was implied that minor character Adam X the X-Treme was the son of Catherine Summers and Shi'Ar Emperor D'Ken. While this origin was never confirmed in the comics themselves, Adam is half-human, and Katherine was the only known human woman in Shi'ar space at the time, and the writer has confirmed that intended Adam X to be the half-brother of Cyclops and Havok.
 * Add to that the comic book X-Men: The End, which tried to wrap up every single plot that Chris Claremont never got to resolve, and all of a sudden Gambit is a Summers due to being a genetic combo of Mr. Sinister and Scott Summer's DNA. Add to that the fact that the panel that started this whole mess only says "brothers" and doesn't imply a specific number, which means there may be more Summers men coming...
 * It could be argued that Cyclops is Galactus' father-in-law, although you do have to go through two different alternate timelines to get to that point.
 * This is not an exaggeration, by the way. In the Earth X trilogy, it's revealed at the end of the first series that
 * This is an incomplete version of the actual family tree. Tremble with fear, puny mortals.
 * This is another version of the Summers family tree with fewer ancestors you've never heard of and more pretty colors.
 * Still another which, via tracking minor hookups, encompasses nearly all Marvel's marquee players.
 * It's even acknowledged in the comics how ridiculous the tree is. In one issue, Storm is explaining it to Joseph (a clone of the X-Men's arch-enemy Magneto), who thinks he's finally figured it out and understands how Cable can be older than his own father. Then Storm tells him about Cable's not yet born sister Rachel. Not yet born. Where she comes from, Rachel is an only child as well. At this point in the explanation, Joseph appears that he's going to have a mental breakdown.
 * Stryfe, Cable's evil clone and possible father to his son Tyler aka Genesis (not like they could do a paternity test since Stryfe and Cable have identical DNA). There's Nate Grey, Cable's alternate self from the Age of Apocalypse created by Mr. Sinister. Then there is Hyperstorm, the son of an alternate Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers. Oh and then there's Hope, Cable's adopted daughter he's raising in the future who may or may not be Jean reborn.
 * It just keeps growing, with the addition of Ruby Summers, the child of Scott and Emma Frost.
 * As a result of Vulcan's marriage to Deathbird, we can also add her former brother-in-law Charles Xavier to the list.
 * And there's also Hope Summers aka the mutant messiah who Cable adopted.
 * Possibly making Jean Gray her own granddaughter. Via cloning, reincarnation, time travel, and a few alternate universes. Not really clear yet.
 * Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning made fun of how messed up the Summers family tree is in their New Mutants run, when Dani Moonstar gets her friend to be Nate Grey's therapist and he notices Hope acting weird around his patient. Dani tries to explain to him that Nate is a younger alternate counterpart of her adoptive father from the future, before realizing how ridiculous it sounds. There was also a bit about Steve Rogers changing his mind and letting the X-Men take care of Nate once he heard he was Summers' relative, implying he doesn't want to even touch anything related to this mess.
 * Magneto's family tree has also been fairly snarled. One of his original two children married into the Inhuman Royal Family, the other married a robot who was the "brother" of Wonder Man (who is himself the brother of the Grim Reaper). Both their marriages have been dissolved, but he's picked up another daughter. Who's dating a Summers. Magneto's eldest daughter died as part of his Start of Darkness.
 * He has an alternate reality granddaughter in Nocturne, daughter of Nightcrawler, who has an adopted family as well as numerous half brothers and his mother, Mystique, adopted Rogue. Magneto's ex-daughter-in-law just married Ronan the Accuser, while his son-in-law, the second Vision, also provides him with family in Victor Mancha, the third Vision, the first Human Torch (not Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four), Toro, Doctor Nemesis, Frankie Raye, Jocasta, Henry Pym, the Wasp and Hawkeye, to name but a few. The third Vision is "brother" to Kang the Conqueror, who is a descendant of Doctor Doom and Nathaniel Richards, the father of Mr Fantastic and great-grandfather to Hyperstorm providing him with another link to the Summers Family.
 * If you include Nathaniel then that means his other 3 children Huntara, Kristoff and his unnamed son with his second wife Cassandra get included. Plus if Kang/Immortus/Scarlet Centurion/Iron Lad gets included so do Kang and Immortus's litany of sons named Marcus and Kang's lady friend Ravonna who posed as Nebula for a while. Once you add Marcus you may have to add Ms. Marvel/Binary/Warbird because she gave birth to Marcus Immortus. Carol Danvers ties back in several ways...Rogue stole Carol's powers and personality and Rogue is Mystique and Destiny's adoptive daughter, the adoptive sister of Graydon Creed and Nightcrawler and is the mother in two timelines of Magneto's children. Ms. Marvel's powers tie back to Captain Marvel...one of whose sons Hulkling (also heir to the Skrull royality) is dating the Scarlet Witch's son Wiccan.
 * Thanks to the Vision, Magneto is Ultron's uncle by marriage, if such a relationship can truly exist. That must be an awkward family reunion.
 * Speaking of Ultron, he pretty much created this for himself by himself. Created from his "father", Doctor Pym (then Giant Man), and then wiping the memory of his creation from the man (that's been restored now), he made himself a "bride", Jocasta, using the brain of his "mother", Janet van Dyne (Wasp). Then he made Vision from the remains of Jim Hammond (Human Torch) and the brain of Simon Williams (Wonder Man)(the Human Torch part was later retconned by Immortus (one of the many alternate-reality versions of Kang the Conqueror) as part of his efforts to screw with Wanda's head and humanity in general) as his "little brother"/"son", and made himself another "bride", Alkhema, using the brain of Bobbi Barton (Mockingbird), then wife of Clint Barton (Hawkeye). At one point, he actually kidnapped most of the above (including the character calling himself the Grim Reaper, because he was Wonder Man's brother) with the intent of using them all to create an entire robotic race "family". Oh, and there's Vision II, or Jonas, the Young Avenger who was created using Iron Lad (the Nathaniel Richards who will later become Kang the Conqueror)'s armor and the original Vision's memories/programming. So he's kind of like Ultron's "grandson"/"son reincarnate". Then later, we got Victor Mancha, another "son" who was created accidentally/on purpose through the fusion of a discarded Ultron body and the DNA of an unknown drug mule. Recently, Ultron finally married Jocasta...who is technically both his "daughter" (he made her) and his "mother" (she was based on Janet). And before the marriage, she was dating his "father", Doctor Pym, who was unwillingly drafted by both robots to be the techno-priest-of-sorts for the ceremony. And then they went to live in an alternate dimension that was actually the body of the deceased Janet, Ultron's "mother" and Jocasta's source. Goddamn. And in case you're not up on your classics, Jocasta was the mother/wife of Oedipus.
 * Magneto has children with Rogue in at least two realities, Charles in the Age of Apocalypse, as well as Magnus, a member of the original Exiles team, in another timeline. In the Age of Apocalypse the marriage of Rogue and Magneto also created some interesting relationships, for not only are Mystique and Destiny Magneto's mothers-in-law, but Rogue also became the (step-)mother of Quicksilver (who is lovers with Storm in this reality), who is older than her (the AoA Scarlet Witch was killed before Rogue and Magneto became lovers). Oh, and in this reality, Rogue permanently absorbed roughly half the powers and personality of Polaris, Magneto's long-lost daughter who was on the side of the enemy (but neither of them know it in this reality).
 * In keeping with the Oedipus theme, Alkhema also has a "daughter" named Antigone (after Oedipus's daughter/half-sister). She's the only survivor of Alkhema's army of Bio-Synthezoids. Official Handbook Appendix lists Ultron and Alkhema as her parents, with all other androids created by either of them as her siblings.
 * Mystique is Sabertooth's ex, mother of his son, and the Wolverine Origins comic hinted that Sabertooth is Wolverine's half brother. Not to mention it was originally planned that Mystique was going to be revealed to be Nightcrawler's father and that Destiny was really his mother.
 * Speaking of Wolverine, how can we forget about his Opposite Sex Clone Laura "X-23" Kinney, and his illegitimate son Daken?
 * Young Avengers: Wiccan and Speed are the children of Scarlet Witch (Magneto's daughter) and Vision (Ultron's robotic son who due to time travel is also a Young Avenger now) who were magically created from portions of Mephisto (Marvel's Satan, he's got some children on both sides running around too) while Runaways Victor Mancha is a cyborg created by Ultron making him Vision's brother and Wiccan and Speed's uncle despite being significantly chronologically younger and approximately the same physical age.
 * Wiccan's main squeeze Hulkling himself adds another branch to the already twisted Vell family tree. Hulking (Teddy Altman) is the son of the original Captain Mar-Vell and the Skrull princess Anelle. Mar-Vell also had an artifically conceived and force-aged son, Genis-Vell, with his lover Elysius (herself an artifically-created being based on the DNA of the Eternals of Titan). Genis-Vell, with his vast cosmic powers, did a Universal Retcon and also retroactively created a sister for himself, Phyla-Vell. Genis is currently MIA, but Phyla was a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy and also in a romantic relationship with Moondragon, who is herself the daughter of Mar-Vell's old ally, Drax the Destroyer.
 * Genis-Vell also had a son and a daughter, Ely and Mimi, in an alternate future with Songbird of the Thunderbolts.
 * In X-Force, Eli Bard modified himself using material taken from the Technarch Magus (father of Warlock) and use it to resurrect several deceased characters. As these include Graydon Creed (son of Mystique) and members of the Trask family (whose DNA was copied by Xavier's sister Casandra Nova), everyone resurrected in this way can be, at least tenuously, linked to the family tree. Given Trask's involvement, and the inclusion of robots elsewhere in the tree, this could even be extended to the Sentinels!
 * And to Warlock's own son Torgo.
 * Scott and Magneto's trees are already connected twice. One way (via the Richards family tree) is listed above. The second is that Vulcan Summers' sister-in-law Lilandra was married to Charles Xavier. Parts of Xavier and Magneto's consciousnesses merged to form Onslaught.
 * In Marvel Comics, the Olympian gods are just as twisted as their Mythological counter-parts. It Gets Worse however, when you factor in that the Asgardian god Thor is the son of Gaia. That would make him the (half) uncle and grand-uncle of Zeus and his siblings (Gaea being mother and grandmother of Kronos).
 * It was revealed that the Elder Goddess Gaia was actually the single earth-mother goddess (in different guises) in ALL of Earth's pantheons, who mated with all the different sky-father gods, even those who were her own descendants, making virtually all of Earth's gods related to each other through her. This was Lampshaded during the Chaos War (apparently incest is okay when gods do it with each other; this is consistent with the mythological depictions).
 * The second Ghost Rider Danny Ketch and his late sister Barbara turned out to be Separated At Birth siblings of the first (if you don't count a wild west chracter later renamed Phantom Rider) one Johnny Blaze and the spirit who inhabited Ketch's body Noble Kale is their ancestor by mother.
 * As of Avengers Academy, the abomination that is the Pym family tree has another new branch in William Nelson, the son of Tigra, who is Hank's biological son via a Skrull infiltrator who was using his DNA at the time. From a certain point of view, this makes him Ultron's half-brother.
 * Perhaps the only character able to give Summers a run for his money is Knuckles the Echidna in Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog. Due to the fact that Echidna society has, apparently, been fairly intensely inter-married he's related (sometimes closely, sometimes distantly) to god knows how many members of the supporting cast. One of whom is a crazy head in a jar working for Robotnik. And that's not even getting into the fact he has THREE daughters from three alternate time lines, all of whom lead different lives. Or the fact he has a (Sort of) evil twin in Dr Finitevus and a REAL evil twin in the form of Anti Knuckles.
 * His family tree was printed once. Bear in mind that this is the incomplete version.
 * It's also printed upside-down, with the latest generations at the top.
 * In The DCU, meanwhile, there's the Allen/West/Thawne family, especially Inertia, genetically engineered from Bart Allen and some of Bart's grandfather's DNA, making him possibly the most inbred character in the DCU, especially when you consider said grandfather was descended from the Evil Twin of Bart's other grandfather.
 * Captain Boomerang Jr., who turned out to be Bart's half brother with a parent from the future and ties in Boomerang Sr. loosely to the tree too.
 * Add to that the general familial nature of the Rogues, and the fact that Iris Allen is, well, was raising Weather Wizard's son and the ties begin to bind a little more. Oh, and since time travel's involved, there's a good possibility that Boomer (who's aged normally into his early twenties) is actually Bart's little brother.
 * It gets even crazier when you throw in the millennia-old feud the first two families have with the third, and that a major reason for the feud is due to said families being related in the first place... hope you have plenty of time on your hands and a firm grasp on your sanity, you'll need it.
 * And Superman, both in his past (the House of El) and present and several alternate futures: the Superman Dynasty, various clones and half-clones, the Goo Goo Godlike Ariella Kent (the child of Alt!Superman and one of the Supergirls-- no, NOT the cousin!), an adopted son who is the biochild of General Zod, and dead-then-retconned-out-of-existence/thefamily-then-back-again Power Girl and the other Supergirl (the one who is the cousin). Incidentally, Power Girl and the current Supergirl are essentially the same person, except from different universes. And Power Girl is...ahem...bigger.
 * And to make matters worse/better, both the Earth-2 (The original Golden Age 1930s version, and Power Girl's cousin) and Earth-22 (The Kingdom Come version) Supermen stopped by the Main DCU durring the 2000s. One of whom died, and came back as a Black Lantern.
 * Them and half a dozen more: Superboy-Prime (A teenage Face Heel Turn-ed Superman from 'our' Earth), Ultraman, Overman, some future Superman who could be from an alternate timeline...
 * Decades of Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck stories by Carl Barks and other authors have left them with a respectably tangled family tree, as well. Barks' successor Don Rosa actually drew the extended (Mc)Duck tree once, as seen here.
 * extended family tree.
 * The Hawkman family tree is almost as bad as the Flashes; no time travel but lots of Reincarnation. The short version is: Prince Khufu of Egypt and his wife Chay-Ara are continually reincarnated. They become Brian Kent and Lady Penbrook, Nighthawk and Cinnamon etc. etc. etc. until,In the 1940s, they become Carter Hall and Shiera Saunders who were Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl. They get married and have a son, Hector, who grows up to be the Silver Scarab. Hec marries Lyta Trevor, aka the Fury, daughter of the Golden Age Fury and adopted daughter of Miss America (a Retcon; Pre Crisis Lyta was the daughter of the Golden Age Wonder Woman). Then he dies and ends up in The Dreaming, taking on the legacy of Garret "The Sandman" Sanford. He temporarily takes Lyta to live there, but when the Lord of that realm returns, he's banished to the afterlife and Lyta is sent back to Earth. She then has a son, Daniel, who goes on to become  Here's where it gets really complicated. Immediately Post Crisis, there were 2 separate Hawkmen in continuity. The original Golden Age version, and the Silver Age version both surviving Crisis On Infinite Earths. A third new version was created in a book called Hawkworld, with the intent of making a fresh Continuity Reboot like the Batman Year One, or Superman Man Of Steel limited series. However, nobody bothered to tell the guy making it that both other versions of Hawkman had already been introduced Post Crisis. This snarl was one of many Post Crisis continuity problems DC tried (and failed) to "fix" in Zero Hour, so they came up with the idea of merging all three into one single being, which eventually lead to the creation of the "Hawkgod" as well. Meanwhile, Sheira's cousin Speed has a granddaughter, Kendra, who tries to kill herself at the same time as anyone named "Hawk-" is getting written out by Zero Hour because of the Continuity Snarl, and Shiera takes her over as a walk-in spirit without realising. She eventually becomes the new Hawkgirl in Justice Society of America. Hector (remember him?) is also reincarnated in JSA as the son of Hank "Hawk" Hall (no relation!) and Dawn "Dove" Grainger and becomes the new Doctor Fate, but still thinks of Carter Hall (who was resurrected, rather than reincarnated) as his father. Since Hector's , Dawn has turned out to have a sister, Holly, who became the new Hawk, and is technically the second Hector Hall's aunt.
 * Hawkman is such a Continuity Snarl that many writers gave up.
 * It's been suggested in The Brave and The Bold that Brian Kent (the Silent Knight and one of Hawkman's previous incarnations) may be the ancestor of Jonathan Kent...
 * The genealogy of Elf Quest is a nightmare, thanks to the elves' millennia-long lifespans, promiscuous mating habits, and tendency to forget who their relatives are after a few centuries or so. Almost every named character in the comic's 30-year run (to date) can be linked to every other named character through a complex chain of offspring, siblings, and significant others.
 * Which did, inevitably, eventually lead to two related characters having a child together: Scouter and Tyleet. Although they're only second cousins.
 * Family trees turn out to be even more complicated than the books would suggest. Particularly Rain's primary family tree, which includes main characters Pike, Rainsong, Mender, Wing, Newstar, Kimo and Sust, and about twice as many secondary characters.
 * The Bat-Family is a (relatively) mild version of this. To sum up, Bruce Wayne has four adopted children: his adopted sons being Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake (the first three Robins) and his adopted daughter being Cassandra Cain (the third Batgirl). Cassandra's biological parents are David Cain and Lady Shiva, two of the most infamous assassins in the world and former teachers of Bruce. Bruce also has a biological son in the form of Damian Wayne (the fifth Robin), whose mother is Talia al Ghul, daughter of one of Batman's greatest enemies, Ra's al Ghul; in the DCAU (and possibly in the mainstream universe) Bruce will also have two other biological sons in the form of  via genetic manipulation and use of a surrogate father. Additionally, the Wayne and al Ghul family trees are even more tangled in the Kingdom Come timeline where Damian's alternate universe counterpart, Ibn Al Xu'ffasch, is romantically involved with Nightfire, who is none other than the daughter of Dick Grayson and Starfire. One can only imagine the sort of Freak Out Dick had when he found out the man his daughter was seeing (and doing other things with) is effectively his brother and her uncle.
 * Batman also had a biological daughter Helena Wayne, aka the Huntress, in Earth-2 continuity (and courtesy of the DCnU reboot, she ended up stranded on the main DC Earth).
 * All of which raises the question: are Damian and Helena counterparts? Because oy...
 * In an out of continuity prose story, The Joker was revealed to be the son of Batman's confidante and adoptive mother figure Dr. Leslie Thompkins.
 * Swamp Thing's supporting character Tefe Holland: The character is the daughter of Swamp Thing and Abby Arcane Holland. Tefe was originally a floating spirit called Sprout, who tried to find a body from a recently deceased person, was eventually given a body through Abby Holland having a baby, which was conceived through the Swamp Thing possessing John Constantine and having sex with her. Due to Constantine having the demon Nergal's blood in his veins at this time, Tefe is also part demon. She eventually became an Earth elemental like her father, beginning a line of human Earth elementals as a new Swamp Thing in Swamp Thing vol. 3, having all of her father's powers, but retaining a human appearance.

Fanfiction
"Harry: This will be the weirdest family.
 * The Harry Potter example below is implied in this Harry/Lucius Mpreg fanfic, in which Harry thinks it's very crazy that he's carrying Draco's sibling when they're the same age.

Draco: If you think that, you haven't seen the Malfoy family tree. *shuddering* That really isn't a pretty sight."


 * A series of short Vampire Knight fanfics (Irit’s Daughter, Gertrude’s Closet, Jocasta at the Crossroads, and Vashti’s Feast) written by Ms Izzy takes the already messed up Kuran family, and tangles it further. The fact that Yuuki’s parents are canonly brother and sister seems tame compared to Ms. Izzy’s version. While the family itself is pretty small, it is impressively tangled, with their unnamed mother being the product of another brother and sister pair, and upon her mother’s death took it upon herself the continue the family line with her own father, giving birth to Rido and Haruka with him. It is further implied that she had conceived Juri with her brother/son Rido, rather than her father/husband. Not bad for a series that’s under 2300 words.
 * The Death Note Troll Fic Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami is an impressive continuity snarl that features Dark Yagami, Light Yagami's Copy Cat Marty Stu Long Lost Sibling who is shagging Light's mom (who is also his mom). But it gets more twisted
 * In the world of the Mega Crossover fancomic Roommates and its Spin Off Girls Next Door every magical being from every Fanon is related. This is as chaotic and weird as you might guess and some even have time magic to boot. Someone theorized in the comment section once that the magic family tree must be the unholy bastard child of an elaborate Celtic knot and the Timey Wimey Ball.
 * The other Spin Off Down the Street seems to do this with vampires.
 * And yet another, the Ho Yay one about the Valjean/Javert ship titled Superintendent with the characters of Victor Hugo.
 * In Naruto Veangance Revelaitons, Ronan has this problem with his harem, which consists of Sakura, Mandy, Taliana and Atni at various points. The first problem is that Mandy is his and Taliana's daughter. The second is that Taliana is Ronan's mother. The third and most perplexing problem is that Taliana is also a clone of Sakura; while it was easy enough to make sense of the first two, that revelation makes Ronan's family tree impossible without time travel, and impossible to draw in a traditional format.

Film

 * In the Transformers movie, Sam's family tree apparently suggests two generations of inbreeding. It's more likely however that Sam just did a very poor job on his school assignment.
 * In The Devil's Rejects, how the members of the Firefly clan are related to one another is complicated and never fully explained. Otis and Baby refer to each other as brother and sister throughout the movie; Captain Spaulding is Baby's father but doesn't appear to be related to Otis; Mama Firefly is presumably the mother of Baby, Otis (in House of 1000 Corpses they say she adopted him into the family) as well as Tiny, the deformed giant, and Rufus (from the beginning of the movie). Then we meet a black pimp named Charlie who Captain Spaulding says is his brother (presumably his half-brother).

Literature

 * Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits focuses on a family tree that gets rather ridiculously convoluted by the end, and that's without the aid of anything particularly supernatural.
 * A Song of Ice and Fire features lots of The Clan, but only one family can have a Tangled Family Tree - House Frey, whose elderly patriarch Lord Walder Frey is on his eighth wife and has over a hundred living descendants.
 * For added confusion, a large chunk of them are also named Walder.
 * Tracing the descent of the Heir to the Eyrie also requires a lot of work, a fact that becomes quite important.
 * Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Family has several fictional characters, including Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Doc Savage as part of a set of inter-married families descended from seven couples exposed to a radioactive meteorite.
 * Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude has a complex enough family tree, made much worse with that of everyone having the same few names. (Plus, there's incest.)
 * The very first novel, The Tale of Genji, already features this very heavily.
 * Robert Heinlein tends to have extremely meshed up family trees. Probably owing to the fact that most of his novels are set in a time where sexual stigma is all but gone and advances in genetics has erased the physical consequences of incest.
 * Lazarus Long did NOT make his mother pregnant with himself (as implied), but in the later books, he is the ancestor of about 99% of all humans. And he did have children with at least 2 of his female clones!
 * "All You Zombies" by Robert A. Heinlein. It's a very tangled family tree, considering that.
 * Nanny Ogg of the Discworld novels is said to be matriarch of a family tree that makes a mangrove swamp look straightforward.
 * The Nobbs family is said to have a similar condition. It's described as being less of a tree, and more of a briar patch. Add this to the sheer number of artifacts the family has "acquired" over the years and, as Sam Vimes once pointed out, you could probably prove that Nobby is the Dowager Duchess of Quirm.
 * In Feet of Clay, Nobby is actually revealed to be the Earl of Ankh. Of course, the source of this information is an obsessive-compulsive vampire whose hobby involves editing the Morporkian royal line for desirable genetic traits, and had thus obviously never met Nobby Nobbs.
 * Also, Pteppic's family in Pyramids. Because they are royal, and the "divine blood" must never be watered down, they already had quite an interesting incestuous family to begin with; Pteppic's marriage prospects are his aunt or his sister. Add this to the fact that anything spoken by a ruling royal is automatically law and treated as such unless repealed, AND combined with the fact that the empire is seven thousand years old, this makes for a VERY interesting set of circumstances. Also, Pteppic's grandmother declared herself to be a man in order to keep the throne, so at this point, Pteppic may in fact be his own father, aunt, grandmother, AND sister, or something to that effect.
 * The Ancient and Most Noble house of Black from Harry Potter. Their family tree is so big and large that you'd be lucky to find a character that ISN'T related in some way to the Blacks.
 * It's almost as bad with the Peverell Family tree. Seriously, Voldemort is like Harry's great-great-great uncle thrice removed.
 * And yes, the Peverell family tree includes the Black family tree, as well as almost every major character in the series. Wizards are rare enough that they're all varying degrees of comparatively close cousins at this point.
 * Arthur Weasley on one occasion mentions that sooner or later there won't be any such thing as a pureblooded wizard anymore, because the continuing shrinkage of the demographic means that all pureblooded families are now, to a greater or lesser extent, related by blood. Hagrid, at least in the movies, is skeptical there is such a thing as a "truly" pureblood wizard alive today.
 * Given the small size of the wizard population, most likely all non-muggleborns are related on some level already. And probably all not that distantly in most cases.
 * The names of two wizards, Charlus Potter and Dorea Black, appear on the Black Family Tree in the films as a married couple. It's quite possible that these two are Harry's grandparents on his father's side, which basically means that he ends up marrying his third-cousin. Not to mention that as well as the Weasley, Potter and Malfoy families, a man named Harfang Longbottom is included. If he were to be related to Neville, then the family tree points to him being his great-grandfather. This would mean that Nevile is Ron and his siblings' first cousin once removed.
 * The Atreides family in the later Dune novels. Having the same genes reintroduced every few generations in the form of Duncan Idaho probably led to some strange folk...
 * The Kashpaw-Nanapush-Lamartine-Morrissey family from Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine. Lulu Napapush is responsible for at least half of the tangledness.
 * Looking at the Star Wars Expanded Universe, try working through Soontir Fel's family tree. The Fel family is pretty large even before it gets to him, and then it practically explodes; he marries the sister of Wedge Antilles, trying the Antilles family in, and has a lot of children with her. Presumably several of the ones who don't get killed off end up married. One of his sons ends up in a relationship with Jaina Solo, daughter of Leia and Han, tying in the Skywalker and Solo lines. It's implied by the Legacy comics that his son and Jaina got married. Soontir Fel's great-grandson is The Emperor. Oh, and in the Hand of Thrawn duology we found that Fel had clones. A lot of clones. Many of them in sleeper cells, with families of their own. For some reason, they almost never show up on family tree charts.
 * Add to that the insanity of the Skywalker family. Virgin birth gives rise to Anakin, his son marries a woman who's been trapped in ice since the early Jedi era, his daughter marries Han Solo... Who just so happened to be the last in line of the house of Solo, a dynasty of Kings who used to rule Corellia before it became a democracy. And so on. Then we get to Cade Skywalker. Cade's father was Kol Skywalker. His mother, really got around. She lived a double life as Nyna Calixte, an Imperial Grand Moff, and Morrigan Corde, an Imperial Spy. As Nyna, she'd sleep with anyone who would advance her career, (Moff Rulf Yage, Moff Morlish Veed) as Morrigan, she'd sleep with whoever she thought would help her mission (This includes Cade's father, and Cade's best friend Jariah Syn, whom he considers a surrogate brother), and at least one of her past relationships (Moff Rulf Yage) gave Cade a half sister, Gunn Yage, who Cade almost slept with as well. Cade must've inhereted his mother's sluttiness, as he's slept with a Sith, an Imperial Knight, Princess Fel, Delliah Blue (whom he shares with Jariah Syn in a creepy little 3-way relationship), countless Twi'lek, Human, and Zeltron one night stands in sleazy bars.
 * The family tree of Ciri in Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher cycle is a major plot point, as her ancestry is intricately tied to The Prophecy predicting The End of the World As We Know It, and it gets discussed a lot at a certain point in the story, but... Well, just abandon any hope to get it without pen, paper and nice two-page wide flowchart, because with the number of mages, elves, Kissing Cousins, Brother Sister Incest and whatever else (though, thank you, without Time Travel ) it is as convoluted as it gets.
 * The incestuous Mayfair family in Anne Rice's Mayfair Witch series.
 * Also, The Great Family.
 * Margit Sandemo's Sagaen om Isfolket has this. The 47 book long story begins in 1581, and ends sometime in the 1960's, and it follows a family/clan. The family branches all over Scandinavia, and the family tree rivals that of the European royal houses. Just about everyone can trace themselves back to the founders of the modern Isfolk in several ways, and the older, pre 1581, Isfolk were even worse with their inbreeding, though not willingly all the time. For more convolution throw in as ancestors to some of the modern ones.
 * The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy plays this for laughs by combining it with My Own Grampa. While the family tree of Zaphod Beeblebrox (who calls himself "the First") isn't fully revealed in detail, his father is Zaphod Beeblebrox the Second, his grandfather is Zaphod Beeblebrox the Third, and his great-grandfather is Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. In addition, Zaphod the Fourth says Zaphod the First is actually Zaphod the Nothingth. (Confused yet?) According to Zaphod the First/Nothingth, this was all caused by "an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine."
 * It's also known that Ford is his semi-cousin because they share two mothers.
 * The Vangers in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy are an incredibly screwed-up family with lots of members.
 * Due to their obsession with blood purity and the resulting intermarriages and incest, ALL Masters in The Stone Dance of the Chameleon are somehow related, although tracing the exact kinships can be a nightmare. The author's website helpfully provides some (complicated) family trees. (Beware of a spoiler in the House of Masks.)
 * Warrior Cats. The authors originally said that there were no possible family trees for the first book, and not without reason. Imagine the mess it caused when they wrote a prequel. And now that they're several generations past the original cast, well... Kissing Cousins and Incest Is Relative abound.
 * The Pollard family in Dean Koontz's The Bad Place. The present generation (co-protagonist Frank, villain "Candy", and their sisters Violet and Verbena) have two great-grandparents instead of the usual eight, two grandparents (who were brother and sister) instead of the usual four, and one genetic parent (a hermaphrodite who self-impregnated).
 * Koontz seems to be fairly fond of this trope. In addition to the non-consensual Parental Incest that results in the births of major characters in Whispers and Life Expectancy, in What the Night Knows, a major character is the product of three generations of line-breeding in his family, starting with a brother-sister pairing, then the father/uncle impregnating his daughter/niece, then impregnating his twin granddaughters/grandnieces, one of whom is the mother of the character in question. The other twin and her daughter (also fathered by the family patriarch) state in their last documented conversation with their relative that they're both about a month pregnant. Guess who by?
 * In The Wheel of Time, the Damodred/Mantear/Mandragoran/Trakand/ family tree. Galad is the half-brother of Elayne and Gawyn by the same father, Taringail Damodred. (Probably.) Rand is in a relationship with Elayne . Gawyn wants to kill Rand in revenge because he believes Rand killed Gawyn's mother Morgase, although she isn't actually dead. Gawyn is in love with Egwene. Egwene is a friend of Elayne's and used to be betrothed to Rand. Morgase is now working for Rand's childhood friend Perrin as a servant. Moiraine Damodred, Rand's Obi-Wan, is Taringail's younger half-sister, and so Galad, Gawyn, and Elayne's aunt; her Love Interest, Thom, is one of Morgase's ex-lovers, and another Morgase ex, Gareth Bryne, is, as of book twelve,  Moiraine's former lover Siuan. Tigraine's brother, Luc Mantear, is also alive and merged some way or other with Isam Mandragoran, first cousin of Lan Mandragoran, another mentor figure of Rand's and Moiraine's Warder. No characters know anything at all about Luc/Isam being alive or connected except for himself.
 * Lampshaded when Rand asks a particular noblewoman about how closely Tigraine and Morgase would be considered related. He is relieved when after being given the suggestion to compare them like farmers, the noblewoman says nobody would even bother thinking about it.
 * Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle has a somewhat-helpful family tree at the beginning. Marina Durmanov married Daniel Veen, while her twin sister Aqua married Daniel's cousin Dementiy "Demon" Veen. They also happen to be second cousins, the grandmother that the Veen cousins share being the sister of the Durmanovs' maternal grandfather. Furthermore, Marina and Demon had an affair, and both Demon's son Van and Marina's daughter Ada turn out to be the product of this affair rather than of their marriages (in fact, there is some doubt as to whether or not Aqua is even fertile). Naturally, the main plot of the story revolves around the Love Triangle between Van, Ada, and their half-sister Lucette (Marina and Daniel's daughter).
 * Oberon from The Book of Amber has so many children from different marriages that his family tree is too convoluded for anyone to decide who is the rightfull heir to the throne. And he apparently did it on purpose to mess with his children. And then his bastard children starts pooping out in Merlin books. And if what  Oberon says it's true, he has at last forty seven illegitimate children running around, that he knows about. It doesn't help that Corwin has a son with a woman from Courts Of Chaos Royal Family , which is exactly as much messed up, because their Oberon's equivalent, Swayvil, has the same damn idea how to mess with his kids.   Luckily Oberon has forbidden incestous relationships or this would be even more messed up.   Thinking too much about it will make your head hurt.
 * The Count of Monte Cristo does have a handy chart. However, it also chronicles how characters interacted with each other throughout the novel. Hell if you can make heads or tails of it.
 * In Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Cal/Calliope's family tree is like this. His parents, Tessie and Milton, are 2nd cousins. His grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona, are actually brother and sister. Then there's the offhand mention early in the book that Lefty and Desdemona are also 3rd cousins...

Live Action TV

 * True to its comic book roots, the Petrelli family tree on Heroes is slowly but surely getting its way there. It started with mom Angela, sons Peter and Nathan, and Nathan's wife and kids. Then Claire was revealed as a Secret Petrelli Child (by Nathan), tying in her adopted family the Bennets and biological mother Meredith. Later we found out that Flint is Meredith's brother, and that Angela's husband Arthur and sister Alice were still alive.
 * For a while, it was teased that Sylar was a third Petrelli brother, but this turned out to be a big fat lie. But Sylar has his own problems, as his relationships with his parents and their siblings are kind of screwed up.
 * Soap Operas are notorious for this trope, to give a few examples:
 * As the World Turns - The Snyder Family tree. Started out with salt of the earth Emma Snyder and her six children, which included Holden and Iva. Holden fell in love with Lily Walsh while working as a stable boy for her rich family. He later learns that that Lily is biologically Iva's daughter from a rape. By her cousin. But it's ok you see, Iva was adopted. Holden and Lily then become a supercouple and the family tree only gets more complicated from there.
 * Bold and the Beautiful - The way that the Forrester and Logan families have intermingled over the years, made even worse by the fact that Brooke Logan has had children by Eric Forrester, Eric's stepson Ridge, and Ridge's half brother Nick Marone, while the rest of the characters don't seem to mind marrying and having children with their step relatives or the former spouses of their siblings/parents/children.
 * Days of Our Lives - The Hortons and the Bradys have also intermingled several times (to the point where they may as well be one family, even though the writers don't quite see it that way), not to mention several connections with the Kiriakis and DiMera families. (The latter apparently leading to John Black being his own uncle... somehow.)
 * Eastenders - The Fowler-Beale clan was once quite extensive but has largely been supplanted by the extensive Branning-Jackson clan. In fact one character, Liam Butcher is the blood relative of half the cast due to the fact that his mother Bianca Jackson belongs to both of the aforementioned clans, while his father Ricky Butcher has a few connections of his own.
 * How about the Mitchells? More just seem to be coming out the woodwork and creating more havoc for Walford Street. There was even a plot about The Secret Mitchell
 * The McQueens from Holly Oaks is an egregrious example despite only appearing on-screen for three years (with Retcons of course saying they've lived there for over a decade and some members to have actually been McQueens but with different surnames), even having multiracial members.
 * Angel has some issues with this as well. Considering that the show treats siring like family, you have Angel's sire Darla, her sire The Master, Drusilla, who Angel sired, and Spike, who Drusilla sired. Then Darla was brought back to life as a human when Angel killed her. Then Drusilla sired Darla again, making her-as Dru puts it-both Darla's grandaughter and mother. By extension, this makes Darla Angel's mother and grandaughter and Spike her brother and Great-Grandchild. Then Angel and Darla screw like bunnies, defy the laws of the natural universe and conceive Connor, Angel's son, who by the whole siring thing is also Angel's brother and great-grandson. Then Connor sleeps with Cordy (who Angel is in love with) and conceives Jasmine, Angel's completely evil grandaughter/niece/great-great-grandaughter. And this isn't taking into account that Angel probably sired even more vampires than Dru and Spike, including Penn from Somnabulist and, possibly, James and Elizabeth from Heartthrob. So, theoretically, any on-screen vampire younger than Angel is theoretically "related" to him. Plus, there's the fact that in Buffy Season 7 Spike sired a whole bunch of vamps under the First's control, who may have sired others. Angel also sired at least two other vamps in his past, who may have turned others as well.
 * Cordelia also had at least one other pregnancy that didn't go to term (a good thing, since it would have killed her in being born). And considering Buffy's romantic involvements with both Angel and Spike, it's something of a relief that Buffy Summers and Scott Summers aren't related...
 * In The Pretender you have Jarod who is the son of Charles and Margaret and has a brother Kyle and a sister Emily. He also has a half-brother Ethan who is the son of Charles and Catherine Parker. Catherine also being the mother of Ms. Parker and her long lost twin brother Mr. Lyle. The twins thought their father was Mr. Parker but in reality his long lost brother Mr. Raines is their true biological father and Mr. Raines also had another child Annie with his wife Edna. Oh and Brigitte's son may be the son of Mr. Lyle or his uncle/father Mr. Parker.
 * Have you ever tried to draw out the family trees on The OC? It's upsetting. At one point Ryan was dating his long-lost illegitimate adoptive aunt. Then got back together with his Marissa, his step-adoptive aunt.
 * On All My Children, Bianca's first child is the result of rape by Zack's brother. Her second is the result of artificial ensemenation using Zack's sperm. Zack is/was married to Kendall, Bianca's sister, and they have a child. Kendall also had a child by Ryan who one donated sperm and was suspected to be the father of Bianca's second child, but was actually the father of another child, entirely.
 * That doesn't even cover the half of it. let's just consider the Chandler family for a moment. Adam Chandler has been married thirteen times, and had two affairs. Between those marriages he had five children (Hayley, J.R, Anna, Colby, and Miguel) and raised Skye as his own before discovering they weren't related. And he adopted his nephew Scott. J.R had an affair with Annie (wife #13) to break them up, and now they've fallen in love. But Annie is engaged to Scott, and used to be married to Ryan, who she had a daughter Emma with. Ryan was engaged to Greenlee (who's also Emma's godmother), but she died and then came back and married David out of spite because Ryan had started a relationship with Madison. He also had a child with Kendall, Erica's daughter (and by the way, Erica married Greenlee's dad Jackson). But wait! Because Erica's been married just as many times (including to Adam) and almost fell in love with Caleb, who's the nephew to Palmer Cortland. And his ex-wife had an affair with Adam. Plus there's the situation with Tad. He live sin a house with two daughters, each from different previous marriages, has a grown up son who was also from a previous marriage, adopted Damon (who turned out to be his biological son anyways) and had a fling with Liza, who's Colby's mother, who's dating damon. It's like one giant loop-de-loop!
 * Big Love: Thanks to the multiple marriages and multiple wives in the polygamist compound of Juniper Creek--"Prophet" Roman Grant alone has 31 children and 187 grandchildren-- figuring out who's related to whom can be an impossibly ardous task. As expressed by (one of) Roman's wife('s), Adaleen: "I'm my own grandmother."
 * On The New Adventures Of Old Christine this didn't end up happening, but was played with a lot when Old Christine was dating New Christine's father, and New Christine was dating Old Christine's ex, Richard, with whom Old Christine had a son. There was one scene were Old Christine was trying to diagram their family tree if both of these relationships ended in marriage.
 * On the Australian Comedy-Drama Offspring, the Proudman family seems to be getting like this. The father Darcy has two girls (Main Character Nina and Billie, who couldn't bear a child with her partner so she got sperm donated from his brother instead, but that went down the gurgler) and a boy (Jimmy) by his estranged wife Geraldine and a son (Ray) from a one night stand from Nina's work mate Cherie. And now Jimmy has impregnanted Nina's other work mate Zara. That's nothing right?
 * On One Tree Hill Karen had a baby, Lucas, with Dan Scott who had another son, Nathan, with his wife Deb six months later. Years later Karen ends up getting pregnant by Dan's brother Keith. Her daughter, Lily, is technically both Lucas's half-sister and his cousin.
 * Lister from Red Dwarf, who gave birth to twins via impregnation with his parallel universe female self, and is also his own father by an alternate universe Kochanski. Which means his children have only 50% genetic material they should have.
 * On American Horror Story Constance has four kids (three of whom we meet). Her son Tate ends up.
 * Married With Children: "In Wanker County, nobody's really outside the family."

Music

 * "I'm My Own Grandpa"
 * "None but the Lonely Heart" -- A Spike Jones Soaperetta

Religion & Mythology

 * Pretty much every named character in Classical Mythology can be placed somewhere on one massive and convoluted family tree. This is partly because the "long-running continuity" we're talking about here stretched over centuries of oral tradition and scores of different storytellers, and partly because... well... Zeus slept around a lot. Seriously, on any given family tree he's everyone's ancestor in at least two different places.
 * It really doesn't help that the Olympian gods, who via traditional and less-than-traditional means birthed the majority of the gods, were children of the Titans, who were themselves the children of Gaia and Ouranos (see a pattern?), and that Zeus was far from the only one who considered monogamy beneath him.
 * Things got off to a great start as Ouranos already was Gaia's son - she gave birth to him unassisted by any male - so 'his' children, the Titans, the Furies, the Gigantes, the Hekatonchieres, the Cyclopes etc., were also his siblings.
 * Family trees became especially convoluted due to Zeus' recurring habit of sleeping with descendants of his -- for instance, he fathered the little-known god Zagreus with Persephone, his daughter by his sister Demeter, and Herakles with Alcmene, the granddaughter of his son Perseus. To add extra complications, there were several instances of mortal women having children by both their divine lover and mortal husband, often as fraternal twins (in at least one case one mother was simultaneously pregnant by Hermes and Apollo in this way). The most well known example is Leda, whose children were Castor and Clytaimnestra (fathered by her husband Tyndareus) and Polydeuces and Helen (fathered by Zeus).
 * And then there were some complicated relationships brought about by the trope of Pair the Spares. For instance according to an Italian tradition, after Odysseus (Ulysses to the Italians) was killed by Telegonus, his son by Circe, Circe granted immortality to Ulysses' widow Penelope and her son Telemachus. Circe married Telemachus and Penelope Telegonus, having sons called Italus and Latinus respectively. So Circe and Penelope both became each other's mother and daughter-in-law, and Telemachus and Telegonus each got a nephew who was also their half-brother.
 * Every mythological hero, and everybody who fought at Troy, needed to have the dignity of coming from a line descended from the gods, and so pretty much every mortal lineage was shoehorned into the Olympian clan by some author (or by multiple authors, using different genealogies, for added confusion!) Then there's the ancient Greek habit of marrying one's nieces...
 * Authors also disagree about the genealogy of some of the deities, for instance according to Hesiod Aphrodite was born from the foam spilled from Ouranos' cut-off genitals (making her Zeus' aunt), while according to Homer she is the daugther of Zeus and the minor earth-goddes Dione. According to some traditions Hephaistos is a son of Zeus and Hera, while according to Hesiod Hera had him without a sperm-donor. According to the most popular myth, Eros is the son of Aphrodite and Ares, but Hesiod's "Theogony" makes him one of the oldest of gods, a brother of Gaia brought forth by Chaos.
 * Any mythology that includes a distinct pantheon can fall into this trope harder than... something really heavy. For a single example, see Loki (Norse Mythology) and his various children, of some of whom he is the father and others the mother.
 * In the modern religion of Wicca, even limiting the pantheon to only two deities does not stop the Tangled Family Tree from cropping up. According to the generally-accepted "Wheel of the Year" symbology, the God is his own father, by the Goddess, who is also his sister. If you want to keep yourself up for the next few nights, try working out all the relationships that imples--or worse, try to figure out where the God would get his heavenly genes from!
 * How about King Arthur? Arthur is the son of Uther and Ygraine, and Ygraine's children from her first husband are Morguase (wife of Lot and mother of Gawaine and his brothers) Morgana La Fey (mother of Mordred, unless that's Morgana again) and Elaine. But Ygraine's first husband was the Duke of Cornwall, which implies some sort of relationship between this family and Mark, who's the Duke of Cornwall when Arthur is king, and is the uncle of Tristram. (And then there's Constantine of Cornwall, who succeeds Arthur as King. Don't ask where he fits in.) Meanwhile, Lancelot is raised by the Lady of the Lake, and fathers Galahad on Elaine of Carbonek, the daugher of the Fisher King, who's the brother of King Pellinore, whose son Lamorak goes on to have an affair with ... Morgause.
 * Arthur King of Time and Space lampshades how confusing this gets here.
 * The Bible. Some people have literally spent decades trying to wrap their heads around THAT mess.
 * The Gospels of Matthew and Luke each give a genealogy for Joseph (who is only the adoptive father of Jesus, and no genetic relation at all) reaching back through King David - however, Matthew claims the descent was through David's son Solomon, while Luke traces it through another son of David, Nathan. Matthew only traces the descent back to Abraham, but Luke goes all the way back to Adam - who, in some translations, is listed as the son of God, which would make him the (half-?)brother of Jesus.*
 * Note that Matthew and Luke already disagree about the names of Joseph's father, paternal grandfather, and his father - Matthew names them as Jacob, Matthan and Eleazar, Luke as Eli, Matthat and Levi.
 * Adam is technically Christ's ancestor, and depending on your religion, his son, since Christ, being the Son of God, is also God in his own right, again, depending upon which religion you follow. So Adam could be Christ's great x10000 grandfather and his son and half-brother all at once. But that's a bit of a stretch on the norm...
 * Made worse when you realize that he had to be a biological heir via Mary to fulfill prophecy, and a legal heir under Jewish law to be legitimate. The biology alone is tangled, but the fact that it had to conform to Jewish inheritance law made things even more complicated.
 * The 'mess' might be less of one if you consider that the genetics involving Jesus works on two levels, one pertaining to his God-heritage and one to his human heritage. Note also that Adam was a creation of God's (with Jesus present, just unmentioned), and so was not God's son on quite the same level as Jesus. As a final note, the Davidic genealogies might be divided such that Joseph comes from the line of Solomon and Mary from the line of Nathan through Eli, making Joseph Eli's son-in-law.

Radio

 * The Archers has a bit of this going on. The website provides some family trees.

Tabletop Gaming

 * The Scarlet Dynasty from Exalted. Thirteen Houses, each descended from a particular child of the 700-year-old Empress, all of whom are mostly marrying with each other in all shades of Kissing Cousins. And since they live to be 300 and are physically in the prime of their lives until a few years before their deaths, there's a lot of 200-year-olds marrying young 20-year-olds, making for kinship relations more convoluted than almost anywhere else.
 * Try living in Malfeas, the Demon City, where a significant portion of the local vocabulary is devoted to describing such phenomena as being related to someone's twenty-seventh soul, being the whole-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts of hundreds of demon lords, or living in a portion of the landscape that happens to also be your father.
 * The original Black Box edition of the Ravenloft setting included a series of family trees for such prominent bloodlines as the Boritsis, d'Honaires, Weathermays and Von Zaroviches. As the purpose of these was to seed people's Ravenloft campaigns with story ideas, each tree had several built-in plot hooks, and a few were connected to others through intermarriage or the like.

Video Games

 * For a fairly short game, Jade Empire packs in a lot of secret relatives of the Emperor. Every single one is introduced well before their particular Reveal. It's a fairly simple tree (three brothers, two of whom have daughters), but by time you learn who the third brother is, you'd be forgiven for thinking everybody's related to the Emperor somehow.
 * There's a massive, full-game sidequest in Baten Kaitos where you have to get every member of a dying old man's family to sign their name on their place on his family tree. The man had five wives and had children with all but one (who he adopted a single child with), many of whom had more children. There's around 120 NPCs on the tree.
 * Metal Gear Solid features clone sons of Big Boss Separated At Birth, one of whom dies and possesses the arm of another man who had it transplanted onto him after his death, and it turns out  A small family tree, but it gets honorable mention because of how insane it actually is.
 * Also, every single mook in Metal Gear Solid 1 is related to the Snakes due to genetic engineering!
 * Liquid also mentions how the Gulf War Syndrome was caused by prototypical gene therapy experiments; therefore, Gulf Veterans and their children are also related to the Snakes.
 * Also Solidus, the third brother, who became President.
 * And Solidus is
 * Trying to detail the relationships of every character in the Metal Gear series forms an incomprehensable mess which ultimately connects every named character in the series.
 * Chrono Trigger has this, and is only exacerbated by Chrono Cross:
 * Marle is part of the Guardia royal family. During her travels she meets Doan, her descendant from the Bad Future, and Ayla and Kino, her ancestors from Sixty-Five Million BC. She also has a pendant.
 * And at least one ending suggests that Frog may be her ancestor as well.
 * Lucca helped revive Robo, and her research eventually culminates in the supercomputer FATE, making her their mother in a figurative sense. She also adopted Kid,.
 * To top everything off, all humans are.
 * The Sims 2 premade neighborhood Strangetown comes with a rather complex family tree. A dead Sim, Glarn Curious, was originally married to Glabe Curious (another theory is that she is his sister). He was abducted by aliens and impregnated by Pollination Technician 9. After giving birth to twins, Glarn left Glabe and married Kitty Hogleg. They had four kids, and the oldest (Jenny) ended up marrying and having children with Pollination Technician 9 when he crash landed on Earth...
 * It gets worse with the sequels. In The Sims 2 for PSP, Jenny and the Curious brothers get a new cousin out of nowhere named Sinjin Balani and Pascal Curious gave birth to his alien child, Tycho. In The Sims 3: Ambitions, the family tree is expanded again with Notzo Curious and Zo Curious' parents being revealed. Here is the family tree for those interested.
 * Thanks to Story Progression, it can even happen randomly to players. The mechanic will pair up any sims Young Adult or older as long as they're not directly related. Since the game is only able to keep track of so many relationship taboos, which often leads to second cousin marriages and the like. Sims can also marry their ex-aunts and uncles (since the game only counts them as related if they're married to a relative) and become their cousins' step-parent. Their new child will be the cousin/stepchild's half-sibling/nephew/niece. To further convolute things, the cousin/stepchild can go on to marry the step-parent/cousins nephew or niece. To complete the circle of fuckery, their child can marry and have kids with the ghost of one of their ancestors. Does your head hurt yet?
 * Although one might not count it as a "family" tree, the sheer number of people in the Kingdom Hearts series who are, were, pretended to be, or were semi-kinda-possessed-by-fake Ansem is staggering.
 * Not to mention all the many Soras.
 * To clarify, aside of Roxas (Sora's Nobody), there's Birth by Sleep gives us Ventus, who not only looks like Roxas (or rather, Roxas resembles him), but
 * 3D has taken this trope and ran with it to extreme levels of litigiousness.

Visual Novels

 * Princess Waltz. It's hard to get into too much detail without major spoilers, but let's give it a shot. A man and a woman got married, and had a son. The woman's sister had two daughters. When the second generation grew up, the elder of the daughters married the son (her cousin), and had a son. However, the younger sister seduced him as well, and had a daughter. When the third generation grew up, . Interestingly, no one ever mentions this.

Western Animation

 * Scooby Doo over various spinoffs, has introduced enough cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, and even siblings of Shaggy, Scooby, Fred, Daphne, and Velma (most of them appearing only once and then never to be seen again) that they probably fall under this trope.
 * Futurama brings us Fry's family tree, seen here. Both he and his father are their own grandpas.

Webcomics
"AG: ::::/"
 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Bob's adopted daughter Molly is a pink furry monster who was spontaneously generated in a lab accident. Molly shares a tiny bit of genetic material with Bob's girlfriend Jean, making Jean her biological mother "just a little bit." Molly lived for a time with Jean's Uncle Cestus Poole, whom Molly addresses as Uncle Cess. Molly built a sentient robot named Roofus, who regards her as his mother, which makes Bob and Jean his grandparents. Roofus now lives on another planet, being raised by Bob's alien friend Voluptua, whom Molly addresses as "Auntie Voluptua." Molly also has a genetically identical cloned "sister" named Galatea, grown by Dean Martin (no, no that Dean Martin), who is her de facto father. She is also Jean's biological daughter "just a little bit" just as Molly is. Galatea addresses Bob as "Uncle." Molly regards Roofus as Galatea's nephew.
 * Molly now also has a second clone sister named Djali ("Jolly"), short for Djaliana, who was grown by Galatea. Jolly looks like her sisters except for being a couple of hundred feet tall. Despite being grown by Galatea, she still considers Jean her mother.
 * Candi Levens has a slightly tangled tree herself. Her great-great-grandfather is Honeybee Samuel, a Scary Black Man who terrorized the south, raped dozens of women, and was murdered with bees in a cabin in Colorado. He goes on to become a Marlquaan-protected ghost haunting that same cabin, and becomes a servant of the long-dead Meshaluta who is carrying out a vendetta from the grave against the Rintel family. Meanwhile, the Flippos inherit a portion of Samuel's insatiable sexual appetite because Candi's grandfather Dwayne Lloyd is decended from Samuel. Candi is Indo-Persian Mulatto because of her great-grandparents Sadasheeva Cherpara from India and Alexis Hood from Indiana. While her mother Shalia is the result of Dwaye raping Marissa and that isn't all too weird, the story gets more complicated. Stan is conceived the bastard of Steve McNolan and Alison Ligash; and when Steve gets sent to jail for domestic abuse, Alison runs off and marries Tobey Flippo out of revenge, becoming Stan's surnamesake. THEN, Phaelites extort Alison into a pact and experiment on Stan and merge him partially with DNA from a donor centipede, hence causing Candi to consider that centipede to be one of her grandmothers. Stan marries Shalia and the Flippos go on as normal, but Candi has a half-brother named Darius Philippine because Stan was also half-cloned and the clone placed inside an egg donated by Insila Murtillo. So Stan has a son that's only a year younger than himself! Also, because Reily was all grown up and married to Ashlee, and they had Kirby before Shalia conceived her triplets, that means that Candi has a nephew who is older than she is!
 * Isn't The Sims just a wonderful place to come up with story ideas? Especially in the days before open neighborhoods?
 * Kevin and Kell stars a wolf and a rabbit, so if you get to thinking about family trees you'd probably figure on the rabbit being the cause of the giant, twisted family tree. But the growing family tree was explicitly pointed out prior to any major revelation about the rabbit's side of things. At that point there was Kevin (the rabbit) and his wife Kell (the wolf), each of whom had a kid from a previous marriage, plus Kell's brother who got married to a major supporting character and turned out to be, not to mention some budding romances and cloning going around, and... maybe you should look for yourself.
 * Note that's out of date, currently we have George Fennec married to a human-turned-rabbit (who is an alternate reality of Kevin's sister) who has a human son, Lindesfarne married her batty fiance, plus add in Kevin's Mother marrying their world's version of DB Cooper (Yes, really), who's a squirrel.
 * AND Fiona Fenec is dating Rudy Dewclaw, and since wolves mate for life...
 * Also, there's cloning.
 * Ellen Dunkel from El Goonish Shive is either an Opposite Sex Clone of Elliot or a magical curse given human form, depending on how you think about it. This leads to confusion as to who can be considered her parents.
 * Ellen has three fathers (none adoptive) and four mothers (two adoptive), and one of her mothers is her brother. That's not including the crazy immortal and an alternate version of her brother, which would put her at four fathers and five mothers. Beat that.
 * Grace on the subject of Ellen: "Elliot's the mommy, the diamond was the doctor who delivered Ellen, and Tedd's the daddy! Wait a minute... If Tedd's the daddy... Oh my gosh! I'm a mommy!"
 * Grace is a hybrid clone (with 4 sources of DNA), and considers the other hybrid clones from the same lab her siblings. Her "grandfather" replaced some of the DNA she was supposed to be cloned from with that of his dead daughter--Grace's "mother" (and namesake).
 * Several characters (specifically, ) in Homestuck belong to a ridiculously mind-screwy family tree, thanks to a combination of cloning, Stable Time Loops, and more than one Temporal Paradox, all of which in turn contribute one of the most convoluted cases of My Own Grampa ever.
 * It gets even worse.
 * Honestly, it's even worse than that.
 * The entire family tree seen so far can be found here. Note that )
 * Vriska sums it up best:


 * Not that she has any reason to talk, since the trolls are technically all part of one Tangled Family Tree as a natural result of their Bizarre Alien Biology. Not to mention that the troll players also fall under My Own Grampa.
 * Speaking of trolls, It Gets Worse. Although it hasn't been outright stated yet, it is very heavily implied that
 * We can even add  into this.  . Wanna make things worse?  . This tree loops on itself.
 * And now as of Act 6  Just to make things more confusing.
 * Though it is (so far) without time travel, he Val'Sarghress family tree in Drow Tales is quickly becoming this with recent revelations about, who turns out to be . And that doesn't even touch on the fact that or how  is technically Ariel's . Spoilerific chart here for those daring.

Web Original

 * The majority of the cast in Thalias Musings. It's the Greek Pantheon.
 * Creative (ab)use of the relationship settings on Face Book can result in these.

Real Life
Louis XIV of France and Leopold I of Austria both had claims to the Spainish throne through Charles II's grandfather, by way of their mothers and their wives. Problem was, one had a mother who was the other's mother's older sister, the other had a wife who was the other's wife's older sister, and nobody could figure out which trumped which. When the third candidate (six year old Joseph Ferdinand/José Fernando of Bavaria) died, the French king moved to have his grandson crowned, and the Austrian emperor moved to have his son crowned. The rest of Europe was terrified of either power gaining control of the Spanish empire, and moved to stop them both. Hence, The War Of Spainish Succession.
 * This real-life example of Incest Is Relative.
 * The family tree of the Julio-Claudian dynasty of the early Roman Empire is just about the closest thing to a real life Tangled Family Tree as you're going to find, as many very confused first-time viewers of The BBC miniseries I, Claudius have discovered. Here's a rendering of that family tree. (Some people have discovered that having a copy of the Julio-Claudian family tree at one's side greatly helps a viewer grasp who's who and what's what while watching I, Claudius. Others avoid looking at the family tree at all, as it contains spoilers.)
 * For example: Caligula Caesar's paternal grandfather, Drusus, was the son of Augustus's second wife Livia by her first marriage. His paternal grandmother, Antonia, was the daughter of Mark Antony and Augustus's sister Octavia. His maternal grandmother was Augustus's daughter of his first marriage, Julia, who married Augustus's friend, General Agrippa.
 * Also not helped by the Romans' love of adopting nephews as sons, sleeping around as much as the Gods, and of giving all of your daughters the same name.
 * The Julio-Claudians were pikers compared to a lot of European dynasties a few hundred years ago. The number of times people married their first cousins to reaffirm long-standing alliances or some such was absolutely unbelievable. Even in the modern day, it still happens - Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are both second cousins once removed and third cousins via different paths. The worst example historically is probably Alfonso XII of Spain whose grandfathers were brothers who each married their own nieces. Instead of the usual 24 great- and great-great-grandparents, he had 10. Admittedly, that's not directly a Tangled Family Tree, but when it carries on for a while(and it did, for centuries) it can get ludicrously tangled.
 * All that that is before you consider that these people were often all rulers in different nations. Just because he's your brother and your cousin doesn't mean that you can't go to war with him, right? Which makes the Thirty Years War (aka, the bloodiest European war pre-WWI) the second-biggest family feud of all time.
 * The family tree of Charles II of Spain is also incredibly tangled. In case you don't want to work it out, that means a grand total of eight separate genomes introduced over the course of seven generations and at least three cases of men marrying their nieces. Not only that, but Joanna of Castile, a.k.a. "Crazy Jane", is most of his great^5 and 6 grandmothers, when it'd be normal to have 16 and 32, respectively. Hence him being a literal deformed moron, hence him being unable to produce children (who would want to touch that?), hence the Succession Crisis, hence the War of the Spanish Succession, or the third-biggest family feud of all time.
 * Philip of Castille and Joanna of Castille together provided about 40.6% of Charles II's genes. That shouldn't work! And frankly didn't!
 * Charles II also had Congenital syphilis (His father loved his whores, and pasted it to Carles II's mother, who in turn pasted it to her unborn son), which is know to cause severe birth defects and genetic mutation. This may well have been the first new genetic information introduced in generations. Think of it as adding a little raw sewage to a gene pool filled with stagnant swamp water.
 * Pick a Habsburg. Any Habsburg. There's a reason there's a wikipedia article on the Habsburg chin.
 * The Habsburgs being the family that controled Austria and Spain. Charles II (remember him?) was the last Hapsburg of the Spainish Branch.
 * The Hapsburg case is one of wanting to keep it "all in the family." Unlike many of Europe's dynasties, they came by the vast majority of their titles through lucky inheritances (having come to power after the black plague devastated most of the noble houses of europe) rather than war, and they didn't want to lose any of them the same way they had earned them. As has been noted, this ultimately produced a literal genetic recipe for disaster.
 * Older Than Dirt: Any given Ancient Egyptian dynasty, whose Royal Blood was traditionally "preserved" via so much incest that it gave Pharoah Tutankhamun a club foot and a cleft palate, and was probably the reason he had no surviving offspring.
 * The Greek Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt (founded by Ptolemy, which means "Warrior" who was one of Alexander the Great's Generals.) is so knotted and twisted that it almost defies description. This website makes a brave effort. Ptolemy VIII Tryphon and his wife (and double-niece) Cleopatra III produced five children: Cleopatra IV, Ptolemy IX, Tryphaena, Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy X Alexander I. Ptolemy IX secretly married his sister Cleopatra IV, but their mother forced them to divorce (they'd already produced two sons, Ptolemy XII Auletes and Ptolemy of Cyprus). Cleopatra IV then married their cousin Antiochos IX of Syria, and had another son with him, Antiochos X. She was then murdered on the orders of her sister Tryphaena (who was in turn executed by Antiochos IX). Her brother/ex-husband Ptolemy IX meanwhile married his other sister, Cleopatra Selene, by whom he had a daughter, Berenike III. He was expelled by Egypt by their brother, Ptolemy X Alexander I, who then married Cleopatra Selene himself (they had a son named Ptolemy XI Alexander II). After they divorced, Cleopatra Selene married three successive kings of Syria, becoming history's only known quintuple queen: Antiochos VIII (widower of her sister Tryphaena), Antiochos IX (widower of her other sister, Cleopatra IV) and finally Antiochos X, her own nephew, by whom she had two sons. Ptolemy X Alexander I married his niece/stepdaughter, Berenike III, and had a daughter by her, Cleopatra V. After his death, Berenike married her half-brother/cousin/stepson, Ptolemy XI Alexander II, who had her murdered and was subsequently murdered himself. Ptolemy XII Auletes, the son of Ptolemy IX and Cleopatra IV, became king and married his niece, Cleopatra V, by whom he was father of the famous Cleopatra VII (she of Caesar and Mark Antony fame). This tangled web is not at all helped by the fact that all the principal players shared only about four names and have to be distinguished by Roman numeral.
 * If Mark Antony had won the war, it would have gotten a lot worse. For example, the Donations of Alexandria would have divided the Roman holdings in the Eastern Mediterranean (and parts of Armenia and Persia conquered by Mark Antony in the name of Egypt) into various kingdoms, each with one of Mark and Cleo's children as King or Queen. In Alexandria, Cleo would have been crowned "High Queen and Queen of Egypt". Her son by Caesar, Ptolemy Ceaser (better known by his Latin nickname Ceasarion, meaning "Little Ceaser"), would be crowned "High King, King of Egypt, heir to Caesar (who was by that point raised to the status of living god), Dictator of Rome". You just know the various lesser kings and queens would get into all kinds of family feuds and incestuous marriages like later day European royalty. Potentially even Twincest since Alexander Helios (Alexander Sun) and Cleopatra Selene II (Cleopatra Moon II) were twins, and both included in the land grab. However it gets really interesting when you consider that the King and Queen of Egypt, traditionally ruled together, were related, and married. So Cleo's relationship record would've gone "Brother, other Brother, Caesar, Mark Antony, Son."
 * Both Queen Victoria of Britain, and Christian IX of Denmark had a lot of children that were married off to the royalty of Europe according to custom. During World War One, every monarch in Europe, even the rulers of minor nations like Romania, and Greece, were the grandchild of Vicky on one side, and Chris on the other, making them both maternal and paternal cousins. (Victor Emmanuel III of Italy being probably the only exception.) Both the Russian Tsar, and the German Kaiser, spoke English as their first language, and the Swiss press at the time called it "the cousins' war". Surreal.
 * Here is a photo of British King George V, and his double cousin Tsar Nicholas II of Russia both wearing German military uniforms together in Berlin before the war. Good luck figuring out which is which. They look enough alike to be twins and have the same taste in facial hair.
 * Even more surreal when you realise that through Imperialism, they controlled anywhere between 75% and 90% of the world's landmass, making them also the most successful family in human history.
 * Victor Emmanuel wasn't the only exception, Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary was way too old to be the grandchild of Victoria; of course he was a Habsburg, so...
 * Despite the close relationships and often being in close communication, they quite frequently hated each other. To a substantial degree, World War One started because the English royals sneered down their noses at Kaiser Wilhelm, and he was desperate to be loved while also resenting them. Yes, World War One takes the title for "biggest family feud of all time," even if you discount the Americans and the French.
 * There was also the fact that Wilhelm really didn't grasp that his cousin George didn't control the British government. He was convinced that King George V wouldn't allow the dispute to come to war, not understanding that George didn't have a say in the matter.
 * The Rothschild banking family, said to be so rich they financed both sides of every war in the 19th century, practiced incestuous marriage, motivated by the fact that marrying outside the family would mean the family fortune would be split in between different lines through inheritance, dowries and the like. Several generations of Cousin/Cousin, and in one case, Uncle/Niece marriages followed. They have since abandoned this practice (doctor's orders). Also, they were right. The family fortune dried up after they stopped the incest.
 * Duke William of Normandy (also called William the Bastard, because he was illegitimate) invaded England and killed King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon King. William was motivated by the fact that he was Edward the Confessor's cousin, and was supposedly promised it by Edward on a stack of holy relics (Edward the Confessor was the King of England before Harold Godwinson for those paying attention). King Harold Godwinson's daughter married Prince Vladimir Monomakh of Kiev (whose own mother was the daughter of Constantine IX Monomachus of Byzantium). The Russians, assisted by large numbers of Scandanavians, invaded Byzantium in 1043. Harald Hadrada ("the Ruthless"), who later became king of Norway, joined the Byzantine army with a large following of northmen ("Varanger"), campaigned widely, and ripped out the eyes of the Byzantine emperor Michael V Kalaphates in 1042. King Harald Hadrada of Norway invaded England in 1066, on the pretext that it was promissed to his family by Harthacnut who's father was Cnut The Great, Viking King of Norway, Denmark, and England (also parts of Scotland, Sweden, Ireland, and Poland) from 1018-1035. Harthacnut's mother was also Emma of Normandy, William of Normandy's grandmother. Harald Hadrada was killed by King Harold Godwinson, who was himself killed by Duke William at the Battle of Hastings, thus ending the Saxon period, and leading to centuries of French rulers on the English throne. All at a time when most people never got further than 3 miles from their birth place.
 * Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. Not only was he a Magnificent Bastard, but he had several literal bastards. Most of them with a very unsure paternity. Charles de Morny a politician, stated: "In our family, we are bastards from mother to son since three generations, I am a great-grand-son of a king, grand-son of a bishop, son of a queen and brother of an emperor". The said bishop was Talleyrand. And Charles de Morny himself had an illegitimate son: writer George Feydeau. Talleyrand's legitimate family was also quite complicated, his brothers and cousins had a great offspring. And Talleyrand's daughter married one of his cousins.
 * Talleyrand fathered a son, Joseph, with Adelaide Filleul, who was herself the illegitimate daughter of King Louis XV of France. Their son, Joseph, comte de Flahaut, in turn had an affair with Hortense de Beauharnais, the stepdaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte and queen of Holland, which produced another son, the duc de Morny. Hortense's legitimate son became the emperor Napoleon III.
 * Talleyrand was also the probable biological father of artist Eugene Delacroix.
 * Genghis Khan's Y-Chromosome is found in 0.5% of all men on earth. Guy got around.
 * Some scientists theorize that around the same time as humans first left Africa, we were on the brink of extinction with fewer than 500 individuals making up the entire human race, all of them living along the straights of Aden. Some time after making the crossing into Arabia, they would splinter into two groups. One group would return to Africa, the other would go on to colonise the rest of the world. They cite signs of a genetic bottle-neck in the human genome as evidence, geological evidence of expanding African deserts at around the same time as a cause, and fishing tools found in fossil reefs in the region from around this time gives them the place. Also of note, Mitochondrial Eve, the last common female ancestor of all humans lived around 150,000 B.C., whereas Y-Chromosome Adam, the last common male ancestor of all humans lived around 30,000 B.C..
 * It is a common misconception that Y-Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve reproduced with each other, and were the only people around at the time, or were the only people around at the time with decedents in the present day. Y-Chromosome Adam is unique because he passed his genes down through an unbroken line of male offspring. Many of his male contemporaries also are ancestors of people living today, but through lines that contain daughters, so their Y-chromosomes were not passed on (although other genes of theirs certainly were). Similarly, Mitochondrial Eve is unique because she passed her genes down through an unbroken line of female offspring. Other women were alive when she lived, but somewhere in your ancestry between you and them is a male. There is no requirement that these two people reproduced with each other, or even lived at the same time for this to be true.
 * It should further be noted that "Adam" and "Eve" are titles, not individuals. They refer only to the last common ancestor of every living human. If some isolated tribe in the Amazon or Indonesia was completely wiped out by a sudden natural disaster, Eve could suddenly have lived 20,000 years later than the current Eve.
 * Also of note, Y-Chromosome Adam lived around the same time as the "Great Leap Foward", the time when humans began devoloping more complex tools (bow and arrow, rafts and canoes, animal traps, etc), and making art for the first time. Therefore, it's entirly reasonable to suggest that Y-Chromosome Adam's line was more successful because they were more intelligent, and therefore either A: reacted better to dangerous situations then competing males (natural selection), or B: had more successful tribes that attracted more ladies and had more surviving children (social selection). Or both.
 * Possibly, but the biggest cause of the difference in time periods is simply because men can have dramatically more offspring than woman.
 * Japan, with a caste system as strong as medieval Europe, is no exception. Until the marriage between who by the time was the Prince Akihito to Empress Michiko in 1958, for the past millennium members of the Japanese Imperial House can only marry another Imperial House member, a descendant of a Heian-era nobility, or, after the Meiji Restoration, the descendants of one of the former daimyos.
 * The Japanese Emperors have all been drawn from the same patrilineal dynasty (their claim to ligitamacy has always been that the first emperor was the grandson of Amaterasu, the sun goddess.) There have however, been a few matrilineal dynasties. That is to say, the clan who had the most power ruled by having the Crown Prince marry the daughter of the most powerful man in that clan generation after generation, therefore ensuring that the next generation counts that clan as family, and is thus loyal to them. This goes on until the rulling clan overthrown by another clan. So first it's the Soga clan, then the Fujiwara, then the Taira, then the Minamoto...