My Russian Ancestry

My Mother's interest into our family's history has existed for as long as I can remember. Handed down to her were numerous family trees dating back as far the 1400s and, more recently, an extremely old and beautiful leather photograph album containing Russian high society figures. This was owned by my ancestor Esther Sumner, whose photograph is displayed in the photograph album.

My Great Great Great Great Russian Grandmother Esther Sumner

Although all of the text accompanying the photographs is in Russian, having lived most of her childhood in Cyprus, my Mother was able to identify some of the letters because of their similarities to those of the Greek Alphabet and was therefore able to identify some of the people. Eventually, after much research, she was able to confirm two of the people as being Dagmar Of Denmark and Tsar Alexander III. How we are related to them is not yet clear.


Dagmar Of Denmark, Tsar Alexander III

Reverse of photographs