A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. -- Holmes (HOUN)

One day, somewhat out of the blue, Holmes begins to talk of his family. "My ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class. But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and may have come with my grandmother who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist" (GREE). According to Watson, Holmes suppressed"every reference to his own people. I had come to believe that he was an orphan with no relatives living; but one day, to my very great surprise, he began to talk to me about his brother." The mysterious brother, who appears in GREE, BRUC, and FINA is Mycroft Holmes, the elder brother of Sherlock by seven years. Holmes admits the Mycroft "possesses [the power of deduction] in a larger degree than I do . . . . When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact and literal truth." (GREE). And yet, Mycroft was "incapable" of using these powers for detective work because he "has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right" (GREE).

Mycroft lodged in Pall Mall. He took little exercise, simply walking from his lodgings around the corner into Whitehall each morning and returning in the evening. Otherwise, he would go only to his favorite spot, the Diogenes club (which is directly opposite his rooms also in Pall Mall, near the Carlton on St. James' end) (GREE). He would go the Diogenes Club at 4:45 PM until 7:45 PM, like clockwork, perhaps picking up the Club's copy of the Daily News.

Pall Mall, mid-18th Century

The Diogenes had a "bow window" (much like 221B) looking over Pall Mall (which was likely located in the Stranger's Room, the room for receiving guests). But what, you ask, was the Diogenes Club, exactly? Holmes, himself, answers:

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed. And three offenses, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere (GREE).

Watson describes Mycroft by saying:

Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock. His body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive, had preserved something of the sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in that of his brother. His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery gray, seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers.
"I am glad to meet you, sir," said he, putting out a broad, fat hand like the flipper
of a seal. "I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler (GREE).

Mycroft himself admits, "Sherlock has all the energy of the family" (GREE).

Nevertheless, Mycroft made a place for himself auditing government department books with his "extraordinary faculty for figure." By BRUC, Mycroft appears to be heading up the employment ladder (many suspect in an early form of MI5 given his knowledge of important government documents). Holmes notes, "He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living . . . . All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience." His omniscience brought Holmes "some of [his] most interesting cases" (GREE).

Mycroft, too, takes his tobacco - but his principal means was via snuff, not pipe tobacco. (He did smoke but what is not stated). Mycroft kept his snuff in a tortoiseshell snuff box. Other items in his pockets were a red silk handkerchief and a pocketbook (GREE).

Now than, we travel on to the particulars. Watson describes Holmes as being "rather over six feet." He must have seemed a bit of a giant by anyone's standards, even for his gauntness, as the average Victorian man's height of the period was 5"6 (as stated in "London Bodies: The Changing Shape of Londoners from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day"). On CSPAN, author Robert Lacey contended Victorian men were an average of 5'5.5"; and he attributed the low height (compared to other periods both before and after the Victorian period) to poor diet in the 19th century including overcrowding in the cities, bad sanitation and bad hygiene practices. Roy Porter's Introduction to "London Bodies" (compiled by Alex Werner) notes, "The best sources suggest a general improvement in height and health over the long haul--with perhaps a dip around the middle of the nineteenth century, indicating the poor sanitation and public health of the early Victorian city."

Surely then, Holmes' very height testifies that his family was either fairly well-to-do (to support a generally healthy life style over several generations) or from the country (where there are less health concerns) or both, as indeed it turns out and as he himself supports by saying, "My ancestors were country squires who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class" (GREE). His comment, however, is slightly misleading as it is certain that this level of health had to continue to his parents generation (they, too, then were not badly off).

Therefore, one can say with some certainty that Mycroft & Sherlocks' grandparents continued to live in the country with more income than the normal class, and it is likely their parents continued to live there (both because of the health factor - individuals born in the city would have been affected, even if slightly so, and because surely, Holmes' parents and specifically his mother were not as retiring as Mycroft and would have eventually showed up in Watson's stories had they been alive and in London. Therefore they were either not living or not in London, and since it is already likely they lived in the country, they were not in London. They may have also been deceased, but there is no data other than Holmes having attended university (so either his parents were still alive at the writing of STUD or he had a benefactor).

Even if Vernet's sister (Holmes' grandmother) had not been properly provided for, Vernet naturally wouldn't have allowed his sister to be in want. Therefore, it is practically a certainly that she lived in a well-to-do-household in the country. His parents' generation, alas, seem to have fallen on slightly harder times as Holmes speaks of his ancestors' class in an objective manner, as if he did not consider himself to be at the same level. His fees and need of a partner at his lodgings to share the expense also confirm that he did not lead an aristocratic lifestyle - though it is also not a lifestyle of the lower classes. Clearly, when we meet him in STUD, he is neither destitute nor rich. What financial tragedy shook his parents' midlives, we shall never know.

On the other hand, we know that Holmes could identify Sir Godfrey Kneller paintings by sight (see "art" for more details), famous for his portraits of members of the "Kit-Kat" club (a pro-Whig club). Holmes also frequented Simpsons, a site of the Kit-Kat club. Although the Whig party transformed into the Liberal party by the middle of the 19th Century, Holmes might have been drawn to Simpsons not only for the excellent food but also because of family nostalgia and a possible connection to the Whigs (the "country" party). As we have demonstrated his family was from the country; and given the other connections, it is plausible that his family was involved in Whig politics (which perhaps led to Mycroft's interest in government). As "country squires", this might have created tension with Crown interests, perhaps leading to his family's financial tragedy. Whatever the case, Holmes held no ill will toward the Crown, as he often helped out Royal interests in his cases.

Both Mycroft and Sherlock had gray eyes; so we can also speculate that their parents bore gray eyes. Gray eyes require two autosomal recessive traits (they are like blue eyes), so since both of them received gray eyes, the odds are against either parent having dominant eye colors which also means most of the grandparents or perhaps 3 of 4 or all 4 also had recessive gray eyes.

Alas, that is all we know about the great detective's family.