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The grand-ducal family of Oldenburg is the junior most branch of the House of Holstein-Gottorp, the junior most branch of the House of Oldenburg. The law of succession of the family is agnatic primogeniture, allowing only males born out of an approved marriage and of a male line to succeed. The current head of the grand-ducal family of Oldenburg is Christian, styled as His Royal Highness The Duke of Oldenburg. The family ruled the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg until 1918, when the last Grand Duke, Frederick Augustus II, was forced to abdicate in the German Revolution.
On 11 August 1903, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia renounced, in favour of Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, the rights of members of the Imperial House (that of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov) to succeed to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. Therefore, should the line of succession presented below be extinguished, the headship of the grand-ducal family would fall to the male descendants of Friedrich, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, as the result of an Oldenburg law dated 19 October 1904.