Blogs which describe people or events related to my maternal line.
Last week marked the sad anniversary of the murder of Russia’s Imperial Family; Tsar Nicholas II, the Empress Alexandra and their five children – Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei. They, together with a handful of their loyal servants, were brutally executed by the Bolsheviks, in the basement of the
Greta Garbo, the glamorous Swedish American motion picture star of the 1920’s and 30s, was to be one of my mother’s first customers when she began work at Saks Fifth Avenue, the high end department store in New York City. It was the 1940s and, despite the outbreak of war,
A couple of weeks ago I made a video about the wedding of my maternal grandparents, Olga and Paul Woronoff, for the YouTube channel “In the Steps of the Romanovs” created by Helen Azar. Helen has translated and published the diaries of the Grand Duchesses, and has found a few
You would think it would be easy to pinpoint the important dates in your ancestor’s life if they had written a memoir. Unless, of course, your ancestor was a minimalist with dates – like my grandmother. My grandmother wrote a memoir, Upheaval, but instead of using dates or years to
I am often bemused, and sometimes amused, by the possessions my parents and grandparents held on to over the years. My family, for various reasons, were fairly nomadic – even after I was born we relocated frequently – so all the possessions I have inherited had been packed and unpacked
Searching for information on my maternal grandfather, Pavel Voronov (Paul Woronoff) uncovered more material than I ever thought possible and I have written quite a few posts about him. However, moving one generation up the tree and the information is more difficult to come by. Naturally, if I could read