Happy Families is a traditional card game played in the UK, usually with a specially made set of picture cards, featuring illustrations of fictional families of four, most often based on occupation types. The idea of the game is to collect whole families. This is done by asking another player whether they have a certain card. If they don`t have it, it is their turn to ask. If they do, they have to pass it to the first player, who can ask again. Play continues until a player matches all of his or her cards into family groups. The game can adapted for use with an ordinary set of playing cards.

The game was devised by John Jaques II, who is also credited with inventing tiddlywinks, ludo and snakes and ladders, and first published before the Great Exhibition of 1851. Cards following Jaques's original designs, with wonderfully grotesque illustrations possibly by Sir John Tenniel (there was no official credit), are still being made.


Family members
The names of the family members are structured in a formal way:

Mr X the Y 
Mrs X the Y's Wife 
Mister X the Y's Son 
Miss X the Y's Daughter 

Family names
Family names, which vary from edition to edition, include:

Block, the Barber 
Block, the Builder 
Bones, the Butcher 
Brush, the Artist 
Bun, the Baker 
Bung, the Brewer 
Chalk, the Teacher 
Chip, the Carpenter 
Constable, the Policeman 
Dose, the Doctor 
Dip, the Dyer 
Field, the Farmer 
Green, the Grocer (most likely a greengrocer) 
Grits, the Grocer 
Hose, the Fireman 
Mug, the Milkman 
Soot, the Sweep 
Stamp, the Postman 
Tape, the Tailor 
Tuckin, the Chef 
Pots, the Painter (maybe a decorator rather than an artist) 
The eleven families indicated by italics are from Jaques's original edition.