The Harry Potter ancestry obviously goes past Lily and James and includes a few famous discoveries that we know of from the books.
[toggler title=”TL;DR” ]The Potter name was derived from the muggle career potterer. Harry’s ancestors passed down the invisibility cloak through marriage to the Peverell family and his ancestors also came up with some famous potions including the Skele-Gro.[/toggler]
J.K. Rowling recently updated the Harry Potter fan site, Pottermore with a short write-up on the ancestry ties behind the Potter name. The story explained everything from simple family ties and how the name came to be Potter as well as some various Potter history.
According to Rowling, the surname Potter, is simply derived from a muggle term that means one who works with pottery. Not quite as exciting as us Potter fans imagined… Rowling informed readers of Pottermore that the name Potter was traced back to a well-known 12th century wizard, Linfred Stinchombe. Linfred was a famous “potterer” which eventually would become altered into his surname of Potter. Linfred lived amongst muggles and was considered a “harmless and loveable” old man who pottered his garden of weird (magical) plants. Linfred also worked on some medicinal remedies within his home under the noses of the muggles which included the all famous Skele-Gro potion as well as the Pepperup Potion that we all know from the Harry Potter universe. Since he was so successful in his career, this is where the Potter’s fortune that we see in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was initially developed.
Linfred had seven children in his time including a son named Hardwin (not a whole lot of normal names in ancient wizarding time). Hardwin ended up meeting and marrying a well-known witch by the name Iolanthe Peverell. Now there’s a familiar name. Iolanthe had inherited the invisibility cloak from her grandfather Ignotus Peverell. Ignotus is the wizard that we end up hearing about in “The Tale of the Three Brothers”. Upon entering the Potter family through marriage, this is where we see the cloak become an heirloom that would be passed down for generations. Eventually it made its way to James and then of course down to Harry himself.
Rowling has been updating Pottermore pretty consistently with tidbits here and there about various stories from the past and also updates on what’s going on in the wizarding world as we speak. Rowling recently claimed that there will soon be a journalist that will be assigned to reporting the current lives of our favorite witches and wizards so definitely be on the lookout for that. Rowling has announced that there is no more Potter novels in the making, but with all of the content she keeps coming out with, us Potter geeks can’t help but hope that our wizarding dreams could come true. Check out more about this story and more at pottermore.com.
