Claimants of Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicholaevna

[TimM]

Well, you honestly never know....things/documents turn up out of the blue sometimes and get published and new information is found.

Assuming they weren't lost in World War II, or something like that, I guess.

[Jen_94]

Yep, true...

[stepan]

At least I think that she was a Russiam lady.  From the way she wrote some words at some documents I can see the influence from  Russian letters.   It seems that the relatives of Owen Tudor diden´t know much about her either. Or even ever met her. At the marriage certificate she wrote that her father´s name was Adolph Haouk. Michael Occleshaw wondered if this name Haouk had something to do with Julia Hauke,the Russian court lady who married into the Hesse-Darmstadt grand ducal family and created the Battenberg-Mountbatton branch of the family. Who knows? I wonder where Julia Haukes family came from? Perhaps from the baltic states as the name doesen´t sound Russian.  It seems also that some inhabitants in Lydd referred to her as the "Russian princess".    So my guess is that she was from a Russian upper class or princely family. I wonder what Occleshaw himself thinks of the matter today and if he has continued his research?

[Jen_94]

I do agree that she was of upper class, yes, from what I read about her. I do wonder if Occleshaw has continued his research too?

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

At least I think that she was a Russiam lady.  From the way she wrote some words at some documents I can see the influence from  Russian letters.   It seems that the relatives of Owen Tudor diden´t know much about her either. Or even ever met her. At the marriage certificate she wrote that her father´s name was Adolph Haouk....  It seems also that some inhabitants in Lydd referred to her as the "Russian princess".    So my guess is that she was from a Russian upper class or princely family. I wonder what Occleshaw himself thinks of the matter today and if he has continued his research?

I think that this is the most reasonable explanation of Larissa's real identity (rather than the theories of the belly dancer at Constantinople or being the daughter of a pork butcher) and it explains well the origin of the large fortune that she gave to her husband after her death. But even with this in mind I still find her story really mysterious.  
About Occleshaw I'm curious too if he continued his research, and also if he still believes that Larissa was TN?

[Robby]

I've long been interested in this case. Her story is really shrouded in mystery. As has been stated before, neither Larissa nor her husband Owen Tudor ever claimed she was Tatiana - Occleshaw showed portraits of Tatiana, along with portraits of unrelated women from the same period, to people who had known Larissa. More than 60 years after Larissa's death, her former neighbors identified portraits of the grand duchess as Larissa.

Other strange occurences are for example the name on her gravestone. If her surname on her marriage certificate is stated as "Haouk", why is it "Feodorovna" (Alexandra Feodorovna) on her gravestone? Owen Tudor also used to send flowers to her grave every year on June 10th (birthdate of Tatiana).

This website is very interesting.

But ofcourse we all know they died in 1918.

[TimM]

It would be nice to find out just who Larissa was.  As I said, however, I don't think that's going to happen.

[LadyHezter]

Has  there been any attempts to open her grave, and take samples from her remains for DNA-testing ?
That could be the only way to resolve the mystery.


LadyH.

[TimM]

The problem with that idea, Tamara, is that they would need living relatives to compare the DNA sample with.  Since nothing is known of Larissa's background, there is no way to tell who her relatives are, even if any are still around today.

[stepan]

Another mysterious twist to the story happened the 30th of July 1998. That morning it was found that the railings surrounding Larissa´s grave had been removed. Shortly afterwards some stone masons arrived to the grave and cleaned the headstone and the marble surrounds. Enquiries were made to the Shepway District Councel and to the Tudor family but noone knew who had given order about this work. This according to Sue Edwards in her little book "No resting place for a Romanov". She is a local historian from Kent. She wondered if it was the Russian Embassy or some other Russians who had ordered this work to be done. Quite a mystery isen´t it? But until this day noone seems to know more than twenty years ago. But somehow mysteries have their own beauty.

[LadyHezter]

Well there IS a way, a DNA-test called Autosomal dna, where "they" can check relatives from all sides of a persons families, many generations back.
If they could check Larissas  dna  against a database were they have  a lot of members dna-registred, maybe there would be a match.

( I know this from personal experience, because I have done DNA-tests, and when I got the results I had 9 pages with -previously-unknown "cousins"! Then I got another
9 pages ! So I´m really busy every evening with "family" nowadays !
I am doing this for genealogy, with my cousins, because we are on a "hunt" for a couple of "missing" great great grandfathers !
Haven´t found them yet, but  a lot of people who are decendants  from  one of our  greatgrandfathers MATERNAL line-which I have never checked at all. And our common ancestors lived around 1650-1750  ! )

So, if one is lucky, there is a possibility.
(And there are DNA -forums which are especially dedicated to Nobility, Russian and Polish among them.)

But of course, there has to be a lot of people involved, church-and judicial   (spell?) authorities among them.




Regards,
Tamara

[Jen_94]

Certainly an interesting twist, Stepan. Very mysterious...

[TimM]

Owen Tudor outlived his mysterious wife by 61 years (he died in 1987).

Good old Wikipedia.

[LadyHezter]

Another mysterious twist to the story happened the 30th of July 1998. That morning it was found that the railings surrounding Larissa´s grave had been removed. Shortly afterwards some stone masons arrived to the grave and cleaned the headstone and the marble surrounds. Enquiries were made to the Shepway District Councel and to the Tudor family but noone knew who had given order about this work. This according to Sue Edwards in her little book "No resting place for a Romanov". She is a local historian from Kent. She wondered if it was the Russian Embassy or some other Russians who had ordered this work to be done. Quite a mystery isen´t it? But until this day noone seems to know more than twenty years ago. But somehow mysteries have their own beauty.

Stepan, do you think there is a possibility, that some autorithy DID open Larissas grave then in  1998 ?
To be able to take a sample from her remains, and check it against the DNA of the IF.
There were still one missing grand duchess at that time. And the only grand duchess the scientist agreed about, was GD Olga N.
Some people speculated that it could have been GD Tatiana who was missing.
So only to make  sure the missing GD wasn´t peacefully buried in England, instead of the Urals.

Tamara

[TimM]

Of course, the discovery of the 2007 remains removed any notion that Larissa was Tatiana.