Editing Ferdinand I of Bulgaria (section)

==Family background==
{{see also|Bulgarian royal family}}
Ferdinand was born on 26 February 1861 in [[Vienna]],<ref name="LoudaT149">[[#Louda1981|Louda, 1981, ''Lines of Succession'']], Table 149</ref> a German prince of the [[House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry]].  He was the son of [[Prince August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha|Prince August of Saxe-Coburg]] and his wife [[Clémentine of Orléans]], daughter of King [[Louis Philippe I of the French]]. [[Princess Maria Antonia Koháry]] was a Hungarian Noble and heiress who married Ferdinand's grandfather, [[Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]]. Ferdinand was raised in his parents’ Catholic faith and baptised in [[St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna]] on 27 February, having as godparents [[Maximilian I of Mexico|Archduke Maximilian of Austria]] and his wife [[Princess Charlotte of Belgium]].<ref>Archiv der Domkirche St. Stephan, Wien, Taufbuch 1860-1865</ref> He grew up in the cosmopolitan environment of [[Austro-Hungarian]] high nobility and also in their ancestral lands in [[Hungary]] and in Germany. The [[House of Koháry]] descended from an immensely wealthy Upper Hungarian noble family, who held the princely lands of [[Čabraď Castle|Čabraď]] and Sitno in present-day [[Slovakia]], among others. The family's property was augmented by [[Clémentine of Orléans]]' remarkable dowry.<ref name="Constant, 1948">Constant, ''Foxy Ferdinand, 1861-1948, Tsar of Bulgaria'' (1979).</ref>

Ferdinand was a grandnephew of [[Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha|Ernest I]], Duke of [[Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]] and of [[Leopold I of Belgium|Leopold I]], first king of the Belgians. His father August was a brother of King [[Ferdinand II of Portugal]], and also a first cousin to [[Queen Victoria]], her husband [[Albert, Prince Consort|Albert]], [[Charlotte of Belgium|Empress Carlota of Mexico]] and her brother [[Leopold II of Belgium]]. These last two, Leopold and Carlota, were also first cousins of Ferdinand I's through his mother, a princess of Orléans. This made the Belgian siblings his first cousins, as well as his first cousins once removed. Indeed, the House of [[Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]] had contrived to occupy, either by marriage or by direct election, several European thrones in the course of the 19th century. Following the family trend, Ferdinand was himself to found the royal dynasty of Bulgaria.<ref name="Constant, 1948"/>