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Queen Mary of Denmark

Queen consort of Denmark since 2024

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ208615
Source-derived summary

Mary (born Mary Elizabeth Donaldson; 5 February 1972) is Queen of Denmark as the wife of King Frederik X.

Mary met Frederik (then Crown Prince of Denmark) while attending the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. They married on 14 May 2004 at Copenhagen Cathedral. They have four children: Christian, Isabella, Vincent and Josephine. Since her marriage, she has carried out engagements on behalf of the Danish monarchy, and she serves as patron of over 30 charitable organisations, including the United Nations Population Fund, the European regional office of the World Health Organization, the Danish Refugee Council and Julemærkefonden. She founded her social organisation, the Mary Foundation, in 2007.

In 2019, Mary was made a rigsforstander, which allows her to act as regent when the monarch is abroad. She became the first Australian-born queen consort of any country upon the abdication of her mother-in-law, Queen Margrethe II, on 14 January 2024. She has the additional title of Countess of Monpezat after her husband was given the title in 2008.

Early life and education

Mary Elizabeth Donaldson was born 5 February 1972 at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Hobart, Tasmania, the youngest of four children of Scottish parents, Henrietta (née Horne) (1942–1997), an executive assistant to the vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and John Dalgleish Donaldson (1941–2026), an academic and professor of mathematics who was also a member of Clan Donald. Her paternal grandfather was Captain Peter Donaldson (1911–1978).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Queen Mary of Denmark” is queen consort of Denmark since 2024. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Queen, Mary and Denmark, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1972, 2000, 2004, 2007—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1972-02-05. For this dossier, Queen, Mary and Denmark is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “queen consort of Denmark since 2024” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q208615. VIAF identifies the subject as 56032463. The Library of Congress control number is n2006005140. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 2000, 2004 and 2007.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Queen Mary of Denmark”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Queen Mary of Denmark primary sources, Queen Mary of Denmark archive and Queen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Queen Mary of Denmark”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Queen Mary of Denmark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.