Harry Potter fans know an awful lot about Harry, but very little about his family background. How did a kid who inherited magic powers end up with a Muggle name, anyway? As an orphan raised by Muggles, Harry himself doesn’t know much about his ancestors, either. But JK Rowling knows. Today she posted a look at the Potter family history and genealogy that explains the name and where all that money came from. Both have been around for a long time.
In the Muggle world ‘Potter’ is an occupational surname, meaning a man who creates pottery. The wizarding family of Potters descends from the twelfth-century wizard Linfred of Stinchcombe, a locally well-beloved and eccentric man, whose nickname, ‘the Potterer’, became corrupted in time to ‘Potter’. Linfred was a vague and absent-minded fellow whose Muggle neighbours often called upon his medicinal services. None of them realised that Linfred’s wonderful cures for pox and ague were magical; they all thought him a harmless and lovable old chap, pottering about in his garden with all his funny plants. His reputation as a well-meaning eccentric served Linfred well, for behind closed doors he was able to continue the series of experiments that laid the foundation of the Potter family’s fortune. Historians credit Linfred as the originator of a number of remedies that evolved into potions still used to this day, including Skele-gro and Pepperup Potion. His sales of such cures to fellow witches and wizards enabled him to leave a significant pile of gold to each of his seven children upon his death.
A few more generations are covered (and more money amassed) before we get to Harry’s father. You can read the rest at Pottermore. -via Geeks Are Sexy