Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Appendix C: Family Trees

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A black, white, and dark blue striped header image with the text Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Appendix C: Family Trees

Happy Hobbit Day to all those who observe! This essay is posted on September 22, the birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, along with the autumnal equinox and the beginning of fall. The American Tolkien Society declared this a holiday in 1978, and since then, Middle-earth fans have celebrated with plenty of food and no shoes. While some fun-hating detractors argue that the celebration should really take place between September 12 and 14, owing to differences between the Gregorian calendar and the Shire calendar, a discussion of calendars will appear in two weeks and no longer be dwelt upon here. This week is dedicated to family trees.

Genealogists gasp in delight upon reaching Appendix C, selections from the family trees of Hobbits first described back in Prologue, “1 Concerning Hobbits”: “The genealogical trees at the end of the Red Book of Westmarch are a small book in themselves… Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate… set out fair and square with no contradictions” (The Fellowship of the Ring, 9). A helpful note at the beginning of the section informed readers that most of the names displayed were guests at Bilbo’s Farewell Party, shown underlined, and direct ancestors to the four Hobbits in the fellowship. All dates were given in Shire-reckoning, with the reminder that brothers Marcho and Blanco led their followers across the Brandywine in Third Age 1601 (Fellowship, 5).

I have the 1965/6 edition, which contains four Hobbit family trees: Baggins, Brandybuck, Took, and “Longfather Tree of Master Samwise”, so named because his family name changed even in his lifetime. The 50th anniversary edition contained two additional family trees for the Bolgers and Boffins in honor of two of Frodo’s closest friends, Fredegar Bolger and Falco Boffin; the trio had conveniently matching names. Thanks to LOTR Project led by Swedish chemical engineer Emil Johansson since 2012, I can explore a combined version of all six family trees, but it does take away some of the nuance in the original text, which I will decode in the final section.

Family Trees & Genealogy

While I have already spoken at length about the genealogical lines of kings in Appendix A “(iii) Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur” and “(iv) Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion”, family trees of individuals have historically been harder to track. Modern genealogists rely on a plethora of records, including censuses, ship manifests, church records, family trees found in Bibles, burial grounds, and newspaper articles on births, deaths, and marriages. Before the advent of the internet, these records were difficult to track down, but modern databases and forums hosted by genealogical societies make the process much easier.

While not as avid a genealogist as those with decades of experience in the hobby, I do know more about my family history than the average American, and I keep tabs on American Ancestors, the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), which was the first genealogical society established in the United States. The society began in 1845 and included mostly Boston Brahmin, the upper class who controlled government and business. In terms related to the Shire, they were the Tooks, Brandybucks, and Bagginses of 19th century New England. Throughout the 20th century, the society opened its membership, and in the modern day, it hosts a spectacular online repository with regular free and paid learning events.

The United States is rife with genealogical, heritage, and lineage societies focusing on different groups. Many began in the late 19th and early 20th century, coinciding with the Victorian and Edwardian eras, perhaps as part of Reconstruction, a reaction against rising immigration, or a feeling of unity after World War I. These organizations appear frequently throughout this blog, as many host programs, restore buildings, and publish books. The Society of the Colonial Dames of America was founded in 1890 and focuses on women whose European ancestors arrived in British North America between 1607 and 1775. The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) was founded the same year and focuses on women whose ancestors directly supported the American Revolutionary War. The men’s version, Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) had been founded the previous year. More open was the National Genealogical Society (NGS), which covers the entire United States and began in 1903.

Of course, genealogical societies exist elsewhere in the world. The Society of Genealogists (SoG) in the UK began in 1911 and holds records from across the British Empire. The Irish Genealogical Research Society (IGRS) began in 1936 after a fire in 1922 had destroyed the Public Record Office in Dublin and copies of its materials needed a new storage facility. Its equivalent in Belgium, Association Royale Office Généalogique et Héraldique de Belgique [Royal Belgian Genealogical and Heraldic Office] (ASBL), has published material since 1937.

During my admitted brief period of researching this, ASBL was the only society I could find in a country where English was not a primary language. Something about being part of a former British colony sparked an interest in family roots. Additionally, while English counties have their own family history Societies, including Cornwall Family History Society in Truro and Devon Family History Society in Exeter, the number seems nothing in comparison to the onslaught of organizations in the United States, where descendants of every veteran, ethnic group, and region can join like-minded family researchers. Perhaps the Americans are like Hobbits in their love of family trees, if not food.

My final note on this is a two part question unanswered in the text: where were Hobbits recording their family trees, and how was it done by illiterate families? In Christian countries after the development of the printing press — special shoutout to Johannes Gutenberg for his 15th century invention — family records have been historically written into family Bibles, mass produced at a lower cost than illuminated manuscripts, although by no means inexpensive. Scholars have hypothesized that the introduction of printing presses led to a rise in literacy.

According to an appropriately named study of historical records, “Literacy in Seventeenth-Century England: More Evidence” conducted by British historian David Cressy in 1977, evidence on rising literacy rates for some socioeconomic classes could be found after the introduction of printed materials. In the gentry or upper class, literacy had risen to modern levels, about sixty percent of wealthy farmers and tradesmen in the middle class could read, and only fifteen to twenty percent of poor farmers and laborers could read. Additionally, men were twice as likely to be literate than women in the lower class. More recent researchers have pointed out some issues with this method, as it relied on the ability of a person in a court case to be able to write a legible signature; writers who were able to read might have preferred to sign with initials or an insignia rather than a full name, not unlike modern logos, and yet they were counted as illiterate in the study.

Hobbits may have invented printing presses, as Merry told his friends to “mind your Ps and Qs” (Fellowship, 175) while at the Prancing Pony in Bree. One origin of the phrase was that master printers said this to their apprentices so the younger workers would not confuse the metal lowercase letters while laying them on the press. This familiar English language phrase would have been translated from Hobbitish Westron, which used the writing system Cirth, discussed in Appendix E. Sure enough, characters 1 and 3 on the chart of Cirth characters greatly resemble “p” and “q”, although the q-like character instead made an f sound (The Return of the King, 449-450). Alternatively, minding Ps and Qs might have referred to pints and quarts, perhaps a pun referring to Merry’s friends going to the bar without him.

As for recording family trees, the original Hobbit version might have been similar to the Korean flavor, transliterated as jokppo (족보), meaning clan records or documented pedigree. I had first learned about this 2,000 year old concept while watching Finding Your Roots, as Korean American actress Jamie Chung discovered her politically influential ancestors. Few English-language articles on Korean genealogical practices exist, in contrast to the plethora of genealogical societies for Anglo Americans, but historian Sangwoo Han wrote an explanation on the popularity of genealogies in 2020.

Korean society developed patrilineal kinship culture based on Confucian ideas, which meant fathers were the most important family members both in practice and in records; women were less likely to receive a spot on paper. In Confucianist cultures, which also include China and Vietnam, people believe family relationships transmit qi or ch’i (氣): simultaneous vibrations or matching “inmost natures”, what Westerners might call a life force. Understanding where the qi originated and where it is going is crucial for family members to understand their relationships with one another. Historically, inheritance was so important that high ranking eunuchs in Korea could “marry and adopt sons to ensure their family succession”.

The greatest difference between genealogists of Hobbit culture and real-world history was their motivation behind doing so. Christians in the West wrote their records in Bibles, coinciding with the child’s baptism or introduction into a spiritual family. Confucianists in the East described how qi passed from father to son. Hobbits appeared to be agnostic and had little interest in the world outside their countries and likely viewed religion as absurd. Their love of genealogy took on a Victorian flavor, as wealthy Hobbits enjoyed tracing their lineage back to cultural heroes like Gerontius “Old” Took and his twelve children, Bandobras “Bullroarer” Took who won the Battle of Green Fields and invented the game of golf at the same time (The Hobbit, 18), Thains of the Shire and their cousins the Masters of Buckland, Tobias “Old Toby” Hornblower who first planted pipe-weed, and colonial founders Marcho and Blanco. These heroes were entirely Fallohide and Stoor Hobbits until a major shift in the culture of the Shire after the heroism of Sam Gardner, formerly Gamgee.

Heirs in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe

The way people were born or adopted was of higher importance in history than today. European society was concerned with agnatic primogenitures, a fancy way of saying that legitimate firstborn sons inherited most property and titles. Western society has largely done away with this concept after World War II; in fact, claiming to prefer sons over daughters is now taboo. However, this issue was historically paramount, especially among the nobility, where rulers went to great lengths to have a son. Henry VIII famously went through six wives, and yet daughter Elizabeth I eventually claimed the throne after the deaths of son Edward VI and daughter Mary I. Claims to thrones among female lines, as successfully made by Henry VIII’s father, Henry VII, since he was a descendent of Edward III through his mother Margaret Beaufort, were clearly not unheard of and successful if one had enough popular support and military power.

Illegitimate children — those born outside wedlock, or a relationship deemed an acceptable marriage by a legal or religious body such as a church, and never legally accepted by the father — were known to appear in court, if not make claims for the throne. Henry VIII had an illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy, with Mary I being older while Elizabeth I and Edward VI were younger. His father considered legitimizing him as heir to the throne, but FitzRoy instead died at age seventeen.

These lines were clearly indicated in Hobbit family trees, and attitudes of characters within the text could be attributed to their birth order and that of their ancestor. Bilbo Baggins with his cunning and brash approach to getting his way even in foreign courts was the oldest son from a line of oldest sons: father Bungo, grandfather Mungo, and great-grandfather Balbo, who appeared to have founded the clan. His rival, Otho Sackville-Baggins, was the oldest son of second oldest son Longo, younger brother of Bungo, and next clan leader if Bilbo produced no legitimate heir.

While Otho showed reprehensible treatment of Frodo upon learning that the younger Hobbit had been named as Bilbo’s heir, his anger was at least understandable in a post-Medieval mindset. Frodo was second cousins once removed to both Bilbo and Otho; his great-grandfather was Largo, third and youngest son of clan founder Balbo, although he was from a line of oldest sons from then on: grandfather Fosco, and father Drogo. Additionally, based on conversations among rustic Hobbits at the Ivy Bush just before Bilbo’s Farewell Party, Drogo’s marriage to Primula Brandybuck was not approved by the community: according to Old Noakes of Bywater, “It beats me why any Baggins of Hobbiton should go looking for a wife away there in Buckland…” (Fellowship, 23) This was enforced on the morning after the party when Otho’s wife, Lobelia Bracegirdle Sackville-Baggins, claimed, “You don’t belong here; you’re no Baggins — you — you’re a Brandybuck!” (Fellowship, 42)

If Frodo had been claimed only by his mother’s family, he may have been fine. Unfortunately, this also seemed not to be the case. During the same conversation where Old Noakes questioned Drogo’s choice in a wife, Hamfast Gamgee claimed, “Mr. Drogo was staying at Brandy Hall with his father-in-law, old Master Gorbadoc” on the night of his death, implying that the two were friends (Fellowship, 23). However, Hamfast misremembered, as was consistent for his character, since Gorbadoc “Broadbelt” Brandybuck was listed in the Brandybuck family tree as dying in S.R. 1363, and the accident took place in 1380. Furthermore, Frodo was born in 1368, five years after the death of his grandfather Gorbadoc, and eight years after the death of his grandfather Fosco, implying that his parents waited to get married or at least have a child until after their fathers were dead. A final word on this came from Merry, present as Lobelia reminded Frodo that he was not part of the clan, who followed up her comment with his own, “It was a compliment… and so, of course, not true” (Fellowship, 42).

Of course, the Took family controlled legal matters in much of the Shire, and if the Thain decided that Frodo was legitimate, then the other clans would have to follow despite grumbling. At the time of Frodo’s birth, the Thain was Fortinbras II, marked with an asterisk on the chart to indicate his position. Successors during Frodo’s life in the Shire would be Ferumbras III, Adalgrim, and Paladin II. Our favorite Thain, Peregrin I, would ascend in 1434, thirteen years after Frodo crossed the Sea. Hobbits with Took ancestry on their mother’s side were marked in brackets: Meriadoc was listed as the son of both Esmeralda Took and Saradoc Brandybuck, Bilbo was listed as the son of Belladonna Took and Bungo Baggins, and Frodo was listed as the son of Primula who was in turn daughter of Mirabella Took and Gorbadoc Brandybuck. The absence of Drogo could be due to the position of Primula as being one generation removed from the Took family name, or it could be a deliberate snub by the Took clan not acknowledging the marriage; the text was ambiguous. To Pippin’s credit, he always went out of his way to refer to Frodo as his cousin.

Family Ties & Changing Surnames

While well-known family trees cover the rich and famous, modern family trees recover the histories and hidden voices of people from all walks of life. These trees are more difficult to construct, as illiterate ancestors who did not own property, appear in court, or attend formal religious meetings might not appear in a written record, also called their paper trail. Even those who did were likely not born with the same name by which they were most commonly known. Modern people in the Western world, especially women, often change their family name upon marriage to match the name of their new spouse. Historically, this was tracked through church records and marriage licenses, which date back to the European Medieval period.

At this time, the Roman Catholic Church had great power over people’s daily lives and fundamentally changed how European society operated. What was once a pagan, kinship-based society focused on maintaining close relationships, creating clans, and encouraging marriage between cousins to enforce interdependence and reward conformity, the Church emphasized nuclear families in a wider community, banned cousin marriage, and encouraged independence, at least within their interpretation of biblical rules. While this was in some ways better for Europeans, as they were less likely to have hereditary diseases through repeat cousin marriage, the decreased power of the Church throughout the colonial period and into the modern era left some people without any foundation or community.

The Shire appeared to be going through a similar shift, although without clear religious leadership. Instead, it seemed to have started with Bilbo and become the norm with the marriage of Goldilocks Gardner to Faramir Took, when a Hobbit from a rustic family, albeit one whose father was the Mayor, married the future Thain. Bilbo and Frodo had both rejected the norm of settling down and producing a good sized family. This had happened in previous generations, as Thain Isengrim III had no children according to a note on the family tree, and various other Hobbits appeared unmarried, but their decision to befriend members of other Races and frequently travel was markedly deviant. Bilbo’s choice of Frodo as an heir was unusual and unpopular but not outside the acceptable norm. Frodo’s choice of Sam as an heir was likely far outside the acceptable norm, but the text never described the reaction of the Shire residents.

Back in the real-world, the greater independence of individuals meant greater travel and an increased likelihood of meeting strangers. This got kicked into high gear with the arrival of Napoleon and his Napoleonic Code, a hefty set of laws that gave instructions on how to write death certificates, marriage licenses, mortgages, which required, among other things, a “Christian name” or first name and a surname that did not change every generation. People quickly adopted names of places and occupations as surnames. In the early 19th century, Prussia used the forced adoption of multigenerational surnames from a government-approved list as a way of controlling its Ashkenazi Jewish population, promising citizenship if they gave up their patronyms, or using their father’s first name as a last name.

Scandinavia was Christianized later than the rest of Medieval Europe and rejected the practice of surnames until the end of the 19th century, preferring to use patronyms. The government of Sweden took naming very seriously, passing their first law on legally allowed surnames in 1901 and regularly updating the law to control both first and last names. The latest iteration appeared in 2017, and other Scandinavian countries, including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Norway, have since adopted their own naming laws. On Middle-earth, Elves and Dwarves also used patronyms, with a modern naming scheme for members of the Fellowship being Legolas “Greenleaf” Thrandulion and Gimli “Elf-Friend” Gloinsson. Patronyms were also common among Men with names like Aragorn son of Arathorn, and they tended to use patronyms for their friends with surnames, using Frodo son of Drogo instead of Frodo Baggins.

Similar to the forced assimilation of Jews in Prussia, the practice of governments forcing surnames on their system continued across the water. The United States and Canadian governments required Native Americans and First Nations peoples to adopt “unambiguous… personal identities legible to officials” to increase rate of assimilation into “a standard patriarchal family-system”, not unlike what the Church had done in Europe several centuries earlier. Frustrated official assigned names when “trying to pin down… persons who had five or six names” and maintained a nomadic lifestyle, not unlike the Elves, Men, and Maiar of Middle-earth. During the 1935 census in Canada, officials went so far as to force Inuit to wear dog tags, treating them like migratory animals, when the naming schemes did not work out. This system was abandoned in 1969 when the government instead introduced “Project Surname”, which made the entire system even more convoluted.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention Ellis Island, a touchstone of European immigration to the United States, one location where families who did not speak English took a new surname, whether they were assigned one by a government official or chose a new name to better blend into Anglo-American culture. In fact, the latter was more often true, as the Naturalization Act of 1906 required that all immigrants to the United States had to clearly document any name change due to the popularity of new arrivals changing their names “within the first five years after arrival” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The same was true of immigrants within the Shire. Sam’s family tree was referred to as a Longfather tree rather than using surnames, as older members on the tree had no surname, and those that did changed the spelling every generation or so. Sam’s father’s family came from Gamwich, a village so far west in West Farthing that it does not appear on the map “A Part of the Shire” found in some editions of The Fellowship of the Ring. The first recorded family member was Hamfast of Gamwich, the great-great-great-grandfather of Sam born in S.R. 1160, while his son Wiseman Gamwich took the village name as a surname and then moved east to Tightfield. In the next generation, Gamwich became Gammidge, and in the generation after, Gammidge turned to Gamgee. Sam’s older brothers presumably kept Gamgee as their family name, while Sam changed his to Gardner.

Finding Your Roots: Hobbit Edition

I was surprised by the length of time covered in the genealogies. The oldest Hobbit to appear on the trees was Isengrim II, Tenth Thain of the Took Line, born in S.R. 1020, but the “original” tree likely stretched to the First Thain, perhaps as far as S.R. 1 or older. The youngest person in the trees was Harding of the Hill, born at Bag-End in S.R. 1501 as the grandson of Sam. Bilbo was the first person born at Bag-End in S.R. 1290, 211 years before. His parents were the first to die there, in S.R. 1326 at age 80 for Bungo and in 1334 at age 82 for Belladonna, equivalent to 53 and 54 in Man years. This was fairly young for Hobbits; perhaps Bilbo felt their time together was cut short, causing him to dwell on his father’s wise advice even ninety years later as he wrote The Hobbit. Elanor was the second child born at Bag-End in S.R. 1421, nearly 131 years after Bilbo, and the first of thirteen Gardner children.

Sam and Rose were no doubt proud to beat “Old Took” and his wife on their quest to establish three Hobbit dynasties. Rose even named two of the children after herself: #3 Rose and #9 Primrose. The chart shows that the births occurred over twenty-one years with no twins, although Rose herself appeared to be a twin, as her brother Wilcome “Jolly” Cotton was born the same year; Sam was 62 and Rose was 58 when #13 Tom was born, equivalent to about 41 and 40 in Man years. This seemed an acceptable age for having the youngest child in a large family. Old Took was 72, or 48 in Man years, at the birth of #12 Isengar; the birth and death years of his apparently much younger wife, Adamanta Chubb, were not listed. Pippin’s father Paladin was 57 when he was born as the only son with three older sisters, while Hamfast Gamgee was the same age at the birth of Sam’s younger sister Marigold. The pattern continued with Aldegrim aged 56 at the birth of #5 Esmeralda, and Gorbadoc aged 60 at the birth of #7 Primula.

A few other patterns emerged in the chart. Families with multiple children tended to have births between two and four years apart, while only children were born around the same time as a second or third child would be in multi-child families, suggesting that Hobbits used some form of birth control, the notable exception being the Gardner family. A major outlier on the trees was the birth of Frodo, an only child to parents aged 60 and 48, similar to 40 and 32 in Man years, making them both older than all other first time parents on the chart, and having larger age gap than the norm in the rare instances when age of both husband and wife could be determined.

In all cases but one, the hobbit-lad was older than his hobbit-lass. An exception came with Merry’s parents. His mother Esmeralda Took, younger sister of Paladin, was born in S.R. 1336, while his father Saradoc “Scattergold” Brandybuck was born in S.R. 1340, making her four years older than him. Other oddities appear in Merry’s immediate family. His uncle, Merimac, was not listed with a wife but had a son, Berilac, born two years before Merry in S.R. 1380, seemingly out of wedlock and out of turn, as the oldest son in Ancient and Medieval cultures was required to marry first. This happened to be the same year Drogo and Primula died, forcing Frodo to enter Brandy Hall as the ward of Rory. With the position of Master at risk with two seemingly illegitimate males in the household and a “scattered” legitimate heir, Rory seemed to have worked with his cousin, Aldegrim, next in line for the Thain, to arrange a marriage between their children. The birth of Merry in S.R. 1382 allowed Rory to proclaim a male heir for the Brandybuck clan along with a viable heir to the Thain, as Paladin had not yet produced a male heir; Pippin would not be born until S.R. 1390.

The idiosyncrasies in the tree do not stop there. Saradoc died young for a Hobbit in S.R. 1432 at age 92, about 62 in Man years, while no death date was listed for Esmeralda. Merry ascended as Master to cause another issue; in the original edition of The Return of the King in 1955, Merry was unmarried and had no heir, although “Appendix B: The Tale of Years” implied that he had at least one son. After receiving complaints from readers, who had apparently forgotten that both Aragorn and Frodo were foster children, showing that a form of adoption was widely practiced in Middle-earth, Tolkien decided to amend the tree in the tenth anniversary paperback 1965/6 edition, and the update appeared in hardcover in the 1987 edition. Estella “Ella” Bolger, younger sister of Fredegar “Fatty” Bolger and second cousin to Merry, was listed as his wife, but the tree still did not include any children.

Another mystery appeared on the Took family tree and concerned the ancestors of Merry and Pippin. The wife of Aldegrim was not listed, which was not uncommon among the patriarchal Hobbits but still seemed an unusual choice for a Thain. Additionally, Pippin’s mother’s maiden name was Banks, a surname that appeared in Bree but was shared by Hobbits from the Shire (Fellowship, 176). While Eglantine Banks was likely not from Bree, the surname may have been a pun related to place of origin or occupation. Banks meaning sloped land beside a body of water came into English in the 12th century via Scandinavian languages, and the description would suit Stoor Hobbits.

In contrast, banks meaning financial institutions, such as post-Medieval moneylender’s shops, came into English in the late 15th century via Romance languages, and the description may have matched upper class Harfoot Hobbits. As previously mentioned in this series, that assumption is based on descriptions given by Bilbo in The Hobbit along with a note in the Prologue: Bilbo looked like his father Bungo (Hobbit, 3), he was like other Hobbits in that he had “long clever brown fingers” (Hobbit, 2) to match the description for “browner of skin” Harfoots (Fellowship, 3), and people came “to borrow money off him” (Hobbit, 22).

In either case, Pippin appeared to not have much Fallohide ancestry despite being in line to inherit the title of Thain of the Shire, perhaps less than twenty-five percent if he were able to take the Middle-earth equivalent of a genetic test. This was implicitly supported in the text by Pippin’s treatment of Sam, who was highly likely to have “rustic” Harfoot ancestry, by sometimes treating Sam as a servant and making jokes about prison at his expense, while at other times acting like his younger brother. He even confided in Sam, “There is not enough of the breed of Bandobras the Bullroarer in me” (Fellowship, 334), citing the Fallohide cultural hero. In contrast, Merry seemed to have majority Fallohide ancestry despite his Stoor surname: he was related to “Old Took” through both of his parents, and he was not mentioned as having facial hair, a Stoor characteristic (Hobbit, 2).

The genealogy of Hobbits was an important part of their culture, yet it has been absent from past adaptations, and for practical reasons. Since films, artworks, and fan fiction focused on the text as an epic fantasy adventure or a relationship-driven story, both of which were correct interpretations, they dropped the historical document aspect of the narrative that would delay the action. However, this technical aspect of worldbuilding was what set The Lord of the Rings apart from other franchises. Because the blood ties between Hobbits were crucial for understanding their society and individual character development, I will include as much about the family trees as possible, likely using documentary style segments and overlays to label characters and show their place on the tree, particularly during the first three chapters of Book I.


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