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There seems to be quit a few pure blood families in the books. Is there any list or reference for how many there are? I'm asking because there is no mention of the family Potter other than James and Harry. Harry seems to be at least a quarter muggle if not more. Since there are so many wizards concerned with keeping the wizard lines pure (an extreme example is the Slytherin line) it seems there would be some record.

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  • Harry is half-Muggle (through his mother, Lily), half-wizard (through his father, James). Then again, someone said in the books that no wizard/witch is truly Pureblood, as they pretty much "disown" their Muggle ancestors, and Muggle-borns almost always have a wizard/witch ancestor, often a squib, so it's never exact.
    – trysis
    May 25, 2014 at 19:45
  • the sacred 28, so 28
    – ava
    Apr 15, 2021 at 13:13

2 Answers 2

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0) Side note: an interesting fact noted by someone on the Wiki: By the conclusion of the series, the Weasley family is the only known pure-blood family to have several male heirs :)


1) There seem to be a total of at least 34 pure-blood (Mostly British) families mentioned. This should start you off: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Pure-blood_families, with this helping: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Pure-blood#Known_pure-bloods (the second one has more).

Here's an incomplete list:

Blishwick
Brown
Bulstrode (Millicent was in Slytherin)
Burke
Cornfoot
Crabbe
Crouch
Flint
Gamp
Gaunt (or should they be counted as Slytherins?)
Goyle
Greengrass
House of Black
Lestrange
Longbottom (Neville) 
MacDougal
Macmillan
Malfoy
Nott
Peverell
Potter
Prewett
Prince
Rosier
Selwyn
Slytherin
Weasley
Yaxley

2) Please note that the families are all inter-related, e.g, the Black family tree shows that the following families from the above list are ALL related:

Blacks
Bulstrode (NOT on Wikia list)
Burke
Crabbe
Crouch
Gamp
Lestranges (married Bellatrix)
Longbottom (NOT on Wikia list)
Malfoys (Married Narcissa)
Macmillan
Potter
Prewett
Rosier
Weasley
Yaxley

3) As an aside, a couple of corrections to some statements in your question:

there is no mention of the family Potter other than James and Harry.

No. There was a Charlus Potter married to Dorea Black/Bolstrude on Black family tree. Also, JKR mentioned Harry's grandparents in her interviews, they largely financed anti-Death-Eater activities, and died of old age and ordinary wizarding ilnesses before Harry's parents died (on purpose, since JKR needed Harry to be alone in the world).

Harry seems to be at least a quarter muggle if not more.

Since Lily was referred to as "Mudblood", she was a full on Muggle. So Harry is at least 1/2 muggle, not 1/4 (if you don't count weird genetic drifts that implied some wizarding blood early on on Evans Muggle family - as per JKR, all Muggle born wizards have a wizard ancestor)

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    That list of course only mentioning known British Pure-bloods. There could be many more in all other parts of the world. Mar 13, 2012 at 22:12
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    @JackBNimble - nobody likes their blue bloods like the Brits :) Mar 13, 2012 at 22:31
  • On your note about the Weasleys - It goes back to my theory that rich families tend to have very few children so their estate doesn't get broken up. scifi.stackexchange.com/a/9202/1148 Mar 13, 2012 at 22:37
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    @JackBNimble - Why would they care about estate breaking up if that means more offpring with your genes? That's screwed up! Having few kids is a 20th century lazy invention. Mar 13, 2012 at 22:53
  • @DVK no, few kids isn't a 20th C innovation - many royal lines stopped at 2-4 kids, instead of the more common 6-12. And, unlike the commoners, nutritional deficits were quality, not quantity, resulting in lower childhood post-infantile mortality.
    – aramis
    Mar 14, 2012 at 14:33
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A late answer, but new information on the British pure-blood wizarding families has come out on Pottermore from J.K. Rowling herself.

In the early 1930s, a 'Pure-Blood Directory' was published anonymously in Britain, which listed the twenty-eight truly pure-blood families, as judged by the unknown authority who had written the book², with 'the aim of helping such families maintain the purity of their bloodlines'. The so-called 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' comprised the families of:

Abbott
Avery
Black
Bulstrode
Burke
Carrow
Crouch
Fawley¹
Flint
Gaunt
Greengrass
Lestrange
Longbottom
Macmillan
Malfoy
Nott
Ollivander
Parkinson
Prewett
Rosier
Rowle
Selwyn
Shacklebolt
Shafiq¹
Slughorn
Travers
Weasley
Yaxley

¹I personally do not recall either the names "Fawley" or "Shafiq" appearing in the books -- please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not going to go over any of the HP Wikia information; the above list of British pure-blood families is fairly definitive to my inner canon nerd.

²Widely believed to have been written by one Cantankerous Nott

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    I'm .... astounded. The list actually contains 28 items. Nov 26, 2012 at 15:50
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    No Potter on this list... Why no Potter? Oct 11, 2014 at 22:12
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    @AlbertCashier In a later Pottermore update, JKR explains that the Sacred Twenty-Eight is not an objective list: “Potter is a not uncommon Muggle surname, and the family did not make the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’ for this reason; the anonymous compiler of that supposedly definitive list of pure-bloods suspected that they had sprung from what he considered to be tainted blood”.
    – alexwlchan
    Oct 11, 2015 at 16:50

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