Blogs which describe people or events related to my maternal line.
These two photographs are amongst countless I have inherited from my mother’s side of the family. So many of them are not identified at all. Luckily my mother wrote on the back of these two, unluckily she only gives half the story. The photograph on the left has the least
I have no system yet for sorting through the many photographs, documents and letters I have inherited from both sides of my family. Much of the time I cannot even read them as they are written in either Russian or German. Sometimes, when I pass them onto translators, even native
I was excited when I found several books at my local library on the Russian Revolution, including a few memoirs. I recently began to write a historical novel, set during the Russian Revolution and loosely based on the last couple of years of my maternal grandmother’s life. As some of
We see it all the time in today’s media. Photos and videos of monarchy and celebrities aimed at generating positive public image. Family photos which look as if they come straight out of a private album are everywhere – in newspapers and social media feeds. But this isn’t a modern
This photo shows my maternal grandparents, Paul and Olga Woronoff on their honeymoon in 1914. Before her marriage, my grandmother was Countess Olga Kleinmichel. All I know about how they met, their wedding and honeymoon I have learnt from the book my grandmother wrote, entitled ‘Upheaval’. However, she was not
You never really know what you are going to find when you begin to search the archives of newspapers. This past week I have uncovered a few treasures. At the beginning of the week I used Trove to find more information on an Australian WWI soldier who I am researching