On 28 June 1914, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. It was an incident which was to set a chain of events in motion, culminating in World War I. Not quite a month after the assassination, around 20-23 July 1914, the French President, Raymond Poincaré, made an
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
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
Does anyone still recite the nursery rhyme “Monday’s child”? I believe it was written to help children learn the days of the week. It goes: Monday’s child is fair of face Tuesday’s child is full of grace Wednesday’s child is full of woe Thursday’s child has
I have set myself a task for the first half of 2020. I would like to find the places my grandparents lived and worked in France, after their escape from Russia. This much I know: My grandparents were evacuated in March 1920 from the Port of Novorossiysk on the Black