Walking in the footsteps of my maternal grandparents and my grandmother’s family, led me from Istanbul to Marseilles, Le Grau du Roi, Rayol Canadel sur Mer, Nice, Paris and finally Baden-Baden, in Germany. As I expected, in Nice and Paris at least, I practically had to run from one address
What will you be reading over the holidays? When I’m not trolling through the real estate websites (because I’ve decided to downsize) I’ve been researching my grandparent’s journey after they were forced to leave Russia during the Civil War which erupted as a direct result of the Bolshevik Revolution. So
On February 14, 1914, my maternal grandparents, Paul and Olga Woronoff (neé Countess Kleinmichel) were married in the Feodorovsky Cathedral in Tsarskoye Selo – I have written about their wedding here and talked about it here on YouTube. So 108 years ago they would have been on their honeymoon. I
On 1 January 1946 my great-grandmother, Catherine Nicolaievna Jakowzoff (formerly Countess Kleinmichel), sent a Christmas / New Year greeting to her granddaughter, my mother. The images of the card and the photo she sent are above. At the time of writing my great-grandmother was 81 and living in France, and
After writing the final chapter of the story of my great-grandmother’s escape from Russia with her second husband, which you can start reading here, I was curious about her second husband. Where did he come from? Where and how did they meet? What did he do when they finally settled
In this final episode, we learn how my great-grandmother and her husband finally was able to leave Russia to be with her daughter, my grandmother. If you have missed the first four chapters of her story, you can start reading them here. Last week we followed my great-grandmother as she