Jonkheer John Henry Van Haeften is a descendant of the Dutch Old Master painter Nicolaes van Haeften. His great-uncle Sir Philip Brocklehurst was a geologist on Shackleton's 1907–09 "Nimrod" Expedition to the South Pole. His grandfather married Brocklehurst's daughter in 1905, and the family has been based in England since then.