Family of Denmark's next Queen 'ferociously proud' of their Scottish roots

East Lothian link to couple who will succeed Denmark's Queen Margrethe II

Scottish emigrants have already given the world the current Canadian prime minister and the previous US president – and now a Danish queen can be added to the list.

It follows the surprise announcement that Denmark's Queen Margrethe II will abdicate on January 14, after 52 years on the throne.

Her son, Crown Prince Frederik, will become King of Denmark and head of state of the country, as well as Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik and Denmark's Crown Princess Mary (Photo by IDA MARIE ODGAARD/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

His wife Princess Mary, who will become Denmark's Queen Consort, grew up in Australia, but both her parents were from Scotland.

She is the youngest daughter of mathematician John Dalgleish Donaldson and Henrietta Clark Donaldson (née Horne), who grew up in Port Seton in East Lothian and emigrated to Australia a few months after marrying in 1963.

In 1998, their daughter returned to Scotland, working for three months as an account manager for Rapp Collins Worldwide of Edinburgh.

She met Prince Frederik in a Sydney bar during the 2000 Olympics but the couple managed to keep their romance secret until a Danish celebrity magazine reported in late in 2001 that the prince was dating a brunette from Tasmania who worked as an estate agents.

The future Queen’s mother, who worked as executive assistant to the vice chancellor of the University of Tasmania, died in 1997.

Her father John Donaldson is now married to the British crime novelist, Susan Moody. He was Dean of Tasmania University, as well as a visiting professor at Oxford University.

In 2003, a spokesman for Tasmania University commented on his daughter’s engagement to Prince Frederik.

"He is very proud of all his children and his other daughters still stay in Hobart. Despite emigrating he is a ferociously proud Scot and takes a great interest in Scotland,” the university said.

Mary became Crown Princess Mary Elizabeth of Denmark when she married Crown Prince Frederik on May 14, 2004, in Copenhagen Cathedral.

Their son Christian was born in 2005, followed by Isabella in 2007, and then twins Vincent and Josephine in 2011.

Queen Margrethe II, at 83, is the world's only reigning queen and the longest serving current monarch in Europe, taking the throne after the death of her father King Frederik IX in 1972.