I came across this website yesterday and I want to know if anyone can give me any input on an enigmatic family legend.
One of my ancestors, Johann Mathias Jahres (1807-1896), is said to have worked for Ludwig II and Wilhelmine as an athletic tutor for the younger children... Marie in particular. Supposedly he taught her and her older siblings to ride a horse, handle a rifle, etc. According to the legend, he had to flee Germany suddenly in 1831 after he became involved in a scandal. One story is that he was caught in the bedroom with the Grand Duchess, another is that he killed someone after getting into a fight over a woman. There was once a letter in the family that gave clues to what happened, but when a family friend translated the letter decades ago, he insisted that the letter be burned and the contents not be disclosed.
This story has been the source of a lot of speculation in my family over the years, and when I first read somewhere that Marie's paternity was in question, I thought Mathias might have had something to do with it. Since then, I've learned that her father was almost certainly this Auguste von Senarclens de Grancy.
Since many of you seem well informed on the specifics of this family... have you come across any inkling of what may have happened to cause my ancestor to suddenly leave Germany, abandoning everything he'd known to start a new life in the US?