von Fircks

Blogs which describe people or events related to my paternal line.

They said, “Go West young man” and he listened

Once upon a time – let’s say seventy years ago – there was a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman. They had only been married for around four months and were beginning to build a life together in a big city. They were not wealthy but they were

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Round and Round the Circular Family Tree

Every now and again I dive into the large plastic tub which holds the many letters my father kept. Most of them were written by his two sisters but there is also a rather large stack of letters from my cousin Wolf Lackschewitz, who I have written about previously. Wolf,

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She won third prize in a nationwide contest

What do a gold mine, a window display and a bookshop have to do with my mother? Well, in 1952, when my parents were living in Colorado Springs, my mother designed a window display for a bookshop which won her the third prize in a nationwide competition. In previous posts

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Digging into the roots to discover the beginning

I am incredibly lucky that my cousin, Wolf Lackschewitz, compiled a detailed genealogy of my father’s family – the Fircks. Unfortunately for me, the collection he wrote is in German. Slowly I have begun to translate it. For this post, I thought I would go back to nearly the beginning,

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My mother was also an author; can the urge to write be inherited?

If you have read my previous posts you will know that my grandmother, Olga Woronoff, wrote a book, Upheaval, about her life in Russia before and during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. I have found at least two unpublished manuscripts also written by my grandmother. You might have

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The Eldest of Seven, Husband of Two and Father of Eight

Although I have written about his two marriages before, I have not yet looked for more information about my paternal great grandfather, Otto von Fircks – pictured above. Despite having plenty of genealogical information about him, I have not been able to find out much about him as a person,

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