The Complicated Route Leading to That Rabbit Hole

 

Ah, the "rabbit hole." Almost any researcher knows of it: that tempting—and often misleading—path which engulfs our good intentions and buries us with fascinating, but ultimately useless, details.

I'd posit that one requirement to qualify a research find as a "rabbit hole" is that it must have a complicated path leading to its official door. Let's see if we can reconstruct that path to today's rabbit hole.

We are, in case you need a reminder, hunting for any genealogical information on a woman named Alexandra Manouiloff, formerly of Marseilles, who immigrated to New York City and completed her petition for naturalization just before dying in 1966. This Alexandra was noted to be sister of my godmother's mother, Lydia Leonoff Melnitchenko (at least, as the Americans would list her married name). 

Searching for the surname Manouiloff produced little of consequence, when employing the usual genealogical websites, so I struck out in a different direction. I took my search to the archived newspaper collections, and ultimately out in the wide world to Google.

The first sign I could find of any mention of that surname—at least spelled in that precise manner—was in a commentary called "Bits for Breakfast," written by George Douglas and published in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 20, 1917. It was just a blip of a mention, but given the context—the recent changes in government in Russia—it was enough to give me a research toe hold.

Douglas began his observations by mentioning, "One of the first promises of the Russian Duma is a free press." The writer then went on to refer to the many European governments which had recently been rather heavy-handed in their policies of censorship.

He wrapped up his point by producing an excerpt from a mere report of a speech said to have been given by "Professor Paul Milyukov" in the Duma. The author, apparently, considered it to be a prime example of the difficulty of censorship.

"I hold in my hands," the professor was alleged to have said, "a copy of the Berliner Tageblatt for September 16, which contains an article entitled, 'Manouiloff --- (censored) Sturmer --- (censored).''

That was only a minor portion of a speech by Milyukov which Douglas attributed as a key cause of the change in the Russian government of that time. While on the one hand, as it is all I had been able to find on any mentions of that surname Manouiloff, I want to stay put, riveted on that one detail, on the other hand, we can't just sweep all those associated names under the rug. Those are details which will help us set the stage—whatever that stage might turn out to be.

Let's go back and review those names. First, the professor: who, it turns out, was actually politician Pavel Milyukov, whose many impassioned speeches seemed designed to elicit emotional responses. Indeed, his speech on November 1, 1916, addressing the Russian Duma attacked then-prime minister Boris Stürmer.

Stürmer, as it turned out, had an assistant who, in Russian fashion, went by the name Manasevitch Manouiloff. We know now, by our understanding of the workings of Russian patronyms, that Manasevitch would be the patronymic form referring to Manouiloff's father—what we would consider a given middle name actually being a formal and acceptable way of referring to a man, sometimes in place of including his given name.

The speech attributed to Milyukov had been printed up in various British and American journals. We learn, in gleaning clues from these journals, that Manouiloff had been arrested the previous September for "blackmailing the Union Bank of Moscow." In addition, he was fingered as "a former functionary of the secret Russian police in Paris." His purpose, it seems, was to furnish reports to his superiors on the activities of Russian "revolutionists."

Some time following such accusations, this Manouiloff did eventually end up in prison, perhaps not so much for being implicit in a scheme to bribe editors of key newspapers, but more as a function of the demise of the entire Russian parliamentarian provisional government.

Enter first sighting of said rabbit hole.

In the turmoil of the waning years of the tsarist government, there was one woman who, somehow, figured significantly in the story of what became of the tsar, his wife and family, and the infamous spiritual leader known as Rasputin. That woman, a lady in waiting in the court of the last Emperor of All Russia, became a close confidante of the tsarina, Alexandra Feodorovna.

Perhaps only because Anna Vyrubova managed to escape her Bolshevik captors do we have her memoir of those last years of the Russian court. I certainly wouldn't have known of that history—having never researched ancestors with Russian heritage until embarking on this exploration of my godmother's family—except that, thanks to that all-encompassing Google search for the surname Manouiloff, I discovered its thrice-mentioned appearance in Vyrobova's manuscript.

Thankfully, Anna's memoirs are freely available to all who want to explore her story through the foresight of Project Gutenberg. But I warn you—should you want to do more than search for Manouiloff's mere mentions in her manuscript—the tightly-packed text can wear on your eyes. Better to find a copy of the book, Memories of the Russian Court, or its newly remade reprint, now entitled My Dear Friend, the Tsarina.

Or, for those who would prefer, at the start of this weather-stricken weekend, to freely jump with abandon into a beguiling four-hundred-page rabbit hole of pre-revolution Russian court history, you can start with the typewritten transcription here.

And don't say I didn't warn you. 

So, Just How DO You Spell That Name?

 

Some surnames have got it made. There isn't much wiggle room when it comes to spelling a name like Baker, bestowing a certain sense of research confidence. But Manouiloff? Oh, let me count the ways a name like that can be messed up.

When I first stumbled upon the possibility that my godmother Genia, only child of war refugees Michael and Lydia Melnitchenko, might have had an aunt who also immigrated from their interim residence in France, I thought I was on to the beginning of a productive search for at least one branch of her roots.

Not so. Just as unexpectedly as Alexandra Manouiloff appeared in records linked to the wandering Melnitchenkos, she vanished from the scene. First I found her in Marseilles. Then I spotted her in a passenger list, arriving in New York City. And not long after she filed her petition for naturalization, she died.

Oh, I checked all the usual places for further signs of her name in records, but without any success. That's when I took my search straight to the search engines and out from the confines of genealogical websites. There are, as you've realized from past searches here, many ways to find further information on surnames in general.

What could I find about the surname Manouiloff? Sadly, not much—but of what I did discover, it will take more than one post and, I promise you, a long slide down a rabbit hole as well.

Where would a surname like Manouiloff show up, you ask? I tried directing that question to the surname distribution site, Forebears.io, but was rewarded for my effort by a null set—plus a list of alternate spellings to try, many (but not all) of which led back to Russia.

Reconsidering my query, I thought maybe a suffix like "-off" didn't look very Russian. Perhaps it was more likely that Russians might end such a sound with "-ov." Furthermore, since the name, as we saw it, came from a refugee who had settled in France, for whom the middle syllable, spelled "oui," might actually sound like the French word for yes, "oui," we might need to reconsider that section of the surname as well. Once again trying to think like a Russian, perhaps the spelling might originally have been more like "uy"—thus, I settled on the Forebears alternate choice, "Manuylov."

That didn't tell me much.

Face it: Alexandra Manouiloff's surname could have been spelled in any of a kazillion ways, especially considering it had passed through an intermediary stop before arriving on American shores to be mangled by English-speaking bureaucrats.

In fact, as far as the French went, during the time period spanning the war-torn twentieth century, when Alexandra would have settled in Marseilles, one French genealogy site indicated that only one person was born with that surname at all. And whoever that was, it was someone who was born in Paris.

Now, keep in mind, all we have for Lydia's and Alexandra's addresses in France were for Marseilles, but if you recall Lydia's daughter's profession—a ballet dancer—we need to remember that Genia spent quite a bit of time in Paris receiving her training and then beginning her career. It is not beyond possibility that having an aunt in Paris to chaperone her activities when Lydia was not available would have made that arrangement more realistic.

Who might that one Manouiloff born in Paris have been? To Google I went for more information, and found references to one "J. Manouiloff" referenced as a contributor to a few research articles published in French science journals in the 1970s. Whether that J. Manouiloff was one and the same as a Joseph Manouiloff listed in a French genealogy site who has since died in Paris, I can't tell.

There were, of course, other Manouiloffs listed at both Ancestry and MyHeritage, but I can't at this point tell whether there was any connection. As Alexandra was listed as Lydia's sister, and I already have discovered Lydia's maiden name, we need to remember that Manouiloff was Alexandra's married name—a name useful for tracing her details in later life, but not helpful for the years before her arrival in France.

Before chasing after any conjecture about alternate spellings, though, there is one fascinating detail I stumbled across that we may as well stop to examine. I warn you: it will be a rabbit hole, and likely not of a type to equip us to find answers to our questions about Lydia's family, but if you are interested in Russian history, you may find it a fascinating detour. You see, embedded deep within the Russian history which was likely at the root of what caused the young Melnitchenkos to flee their homeland was another player's vignette in the Russian saga, someone who also happened to claim that very same name, spelled exactly the same way: Manouiloff.

With the Rarest of Names

 

In the field of genealogy, the discovery of an unusual surname can seem like a gift: a name which only a few can claim, it provides a wide open playing field, uncluttered by competing possibilities.

Not so, I am finding out, with the surname Manouiloff. That was the married name of the woman listed as my godmother Genia's aunt on the passenger records of their 1947 arrival in Virginia. Alexandra Manouiloff was the name given as that of the closest relative, outside of the United States, of Genia's mother Lydia Melnitchenko. Alexandra, according to that report, still lived in Marseilles, the city Lydia and Genia had just left for good.

My first thought was to wonder whether Lydia's sister remained in France, or whether she would eventually consider moving to America, as well. So, of course, I took a look to see whether any other family members eventually joined Lydia in her move to become a United States citizen.

As it turned out, I did find a few details on the woman. But only a very few. Perhaps this name was turning out to be a bit too rare.

First, arriving in New York on the French ship Liberte on May 19, 1958, was a woman named exactly that: Alexandra Manouiloff. Unfortunately, the only other detail affixed to her typewritten entry on the passenger list was her passport number and the term "Stateless." Sadly, this was not one of the forms for which the magic of flipping the page would reveal the secrets we are eager to uncover.

The second discovery was a typewritten index card for those who had filed petitions for naturalization with the federal district court in New York City. The card did, thankfully, squeeze in a few useful details, unlike some on which I have seen not much more than the person's name entered. From this card dated June 20, 1966, we learn not only Alexandra's petition number as well as alien registration number, but also her current address and date of birth.

That October 12, 1899, birth date came in handy for matching up those two sparse records with the sole remaining one I could find: her entry in the Social Security Death Index. Rather, let's make that "his" entry, as the given name recorded was not Alexandra, but Alexander. However, with the gift of finding that same birthday—October 12, 1899—combined with what we will soon come to see as the very unusual spelling of her surname, I believe it is safe to assume it was Alexandra who died in August of 1966, not long after her petition for naturalization was recorded as having been received.

Was there any obituary? Not that I can find. Facing the tedium of sorting through New York State death records—especially those originating from the fiefdom of New York City—will likely be something I'll need to consider. I can't even find a place of burial at this point. And, other than her sister's family, certainly not any indication of who might have been left to mourn her loss.

Such is sometimes the fate of searches for surnames which seem a bit too rare. But I'm not satisfied to leave the search just yet. As we've done with so many other surnames in the past, let's see what can be found by taking our research question outside the sheltered realm of genealogy and into the broader orbit of the Internet at large.