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I'm trying to find out if and how Baldwin II and Baldwin IV, kings of Jerusalem, are related.

Their wikipedia pages don't make it easy to determine this.

So, my question is whether these Baldwins, by virtue of their name and suffix, have to be related?

In other words, can I assume they are at least somewhat closely related?

Who or what determines if a person can become the next person in line to carry a name (with an incremented suffix)?

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I'm not certain that this question is on-topic for G&FH SE, but I will attempt to answer it anyway.

The way that I read the relevant Wikipedia pages is that:

  • Baldwin II was succeeded by his daughter Melisende and her husband Fulk
  • Melisende's son became Baldwin III
  • Baldwin III was childless and succeeded by his brother, Amalric I
  • Amalric I was succeeded by his son Baldwin IV

So I think Baldwin II was the great grandfather of Baldwin IV.

While the naming pattern might enable you to surmise that a monarch of the same name and a higher number may be a descendant of one with the same name and a lower number, I suspect that the rules, if any, will vary greatly between royal houses.

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    Thank you very much for your reply. I had read those pages over several times but could not see that relationship for some reason. Perhaps it's because I'm not used to those figures' names. I'd also be happy if you could elaborate on why the question would not be on-topic.
    – Jim
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 10:29
  • My concerns are similar to those expressed in @ColeValleyGirl's comments. I could not see anything that said definitely off topic but it did not seem to be about your family history or the genealogy of your ancestors.
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 12:23
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    An apropros example of a name sequence not indicating a relationship is Baldwin II, who was not closely related to Baldwin I, his predecessor as King of Jerusalem [per Baldwin II's Wikipedia entry]. Re on- or off-topic, there was discussion that questions on medieval and earlier genealogy should be avoided[?] because sources were often sketchy, but apparently that was never finalized.
    – bgwiehle
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 14:06
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    @bhwiehle, I'm not convinced we should exclude questions by date, but rather look at the provenance of any available sources and the link to a current genealogy (which, at the dates we're looking at, is hard to prove even of the OP had claimed a line of descent).
    – user104
    Commented May 13, 2015 at 18:30

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