Crack a cold one for all the Victorias. (Source.)

Today is Victoria Day, the public holiday to celebrate the birth of Queen Victoria and unofficially mark the beginning of summer in Canada. Victoria Day always falls on a Monday so as to cause a long weekend and consequently lands on Victoria's actual birthday of May 24 only once in a while. The holiday is our last sentimental link to the 19th-century monarch whose person was at one time central to our political and social identity. We buy a lot of beer in anticipation of the beer store being closed, and some of us drown in lakes. In parts of Canada Victoria Day is also known as Firecracker Day.

This year the governments of the Commonwealth are all amending their statutes to allow the Crown to pass to the eldest child of the monarch, instead of the eldest son. This means that if Kate and William's first child is a girl she will probably be Queen of Canada in the second half of this century, if we stick with the monarchy. Might that Queen be named Victoria after Queen Victoria? (Or Victoria Beckham)?

Female lineage doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves, and is normally invisible because there is no shared family name. But if you treat the given name Victoria as a marker, you can draw a tree that overhangs much of Europe.

The first is Queen Victoria's mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, born in 1786 in Germany, who married her second husband, King George III's fourth son, Prince Edward the Duke of Kent, in 1818, displacing his mistress of many years Julie de St-Laurent, a Canadian. Her daughter the future Queen Victoria was born in 1819. Edward died almost immediately and Princess Victoria carried on as the Dowager Princess of Kent until 1861, a headache to her daughter.

When Alexandrina Victoria was born she was fifth in line to the British throne. Then George III died (1820), her father the Duke of Kent died (1820), her cousin the Princess Elizabeth died (1821), the Duke of York died (1827), and George IV died (1830). William IV had no surviving legitimate children, so from 1830 Alexandrina Victoria was first in line. William IV died in 1837, and the princess became Queen Victoria. She married in 1840, had nine kids, and reigned the British Empire until her death in 1901. She is the most famous person of the 19th century.

Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield had an older brother Ferdinand, who had a daughter Victoria, born in 1822, Queen Victoria's cousin and contemporary. She married Louis d'Orléans in 1840 and was afterwards known as Victoria, Duchess of Nemours. Her son married into the Brazilian royal family, which was ousted in 1889.

Queen Victoria's first child was a girl, whom she named Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. In 1858 this Princess Victoria was married to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, heir to the Prussian throne. In 1871 Prussia defeated France and upgraded Frederick William's father's title to German Emperor. In 1888 Frederick William inherited the title of Emperor, making his wife Victoria, German Empress and Queen of Prussia. But Frederick William died almost immediately, and Victoria spent the rest of her days as dowager empress. She died in 1901, just a few months after her mother. If the 2013 rules of succession had been in place in 1840, this Victoria would have become Queen Victoria II in 1901.

Frederick William's sister Louise had a daughter named Viktoria (1862-1930) who married the future King of Sweden and is known as Viktoria, Queen of Sweden.

Victoria the German Empress had eight children, the eldest of which inherited the German throne in 1888 and is still remembered by English-speaking people as Kaiser Bill. Her fifth child was Princess Viktoria of Prussia. Viktoria was born in 1866, and was married in 1890 to a German prince, Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe, who died in 1916. They had no children. The German Empire became a republic in 1918. Viktoria married a Russian dancer in 1927, and died in 1929.

Edward VII, brother of Victoria the German Empress, had a daughter called Princess Victoria (1868-1935). She never married.

Princess Alice, the sister of Victoria the German Empress and Edward VII, married Prince Louis of Hesse who eventually became Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and they had a daughter known as Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (1863-1950) until she married Prince Louis of Battenberg, after which she was styled Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven. She was the mother of Louis Mountbatten.

Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the brother of Edward VII, Victoria the German Empress and Princess Alice, had a daughter named Princess Victoria Meita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1876-1936). She married, then divorced, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and then married Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich of Russia. After the Russia Revolution they dragged around Europe while he claimed the throne of Russia.

Helena, the sister of Edward VII, Victoria the German Empress, Princess Alice, and Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, and had a daughter Princess Helena Victoria (1870-1948).

Beatrice, the sister of Edward VII, Victoria the German Empress, Alice, Alfred and Helena, married Prince Henry of Battenberg and had a daughter Victoria Eugenie (1887-1969) who in 1906 married King Alfonso XIII of Spain. She is the grandmother of the present king.

Kaiser Bill had a daughter named Viktoria Luise (1892-1980). When she was eighteen they named a steamship after her. That's her on the left in the photo, wearing the death's head hat.

Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden (born 1977) is the heir apparent to the Swedish throne.