Who are they to us? Who were they? What is known about this branch
of our (?) family? There is a postcard that Kostya (Konstantin Sergeevich)
Andrianov wrote in 1913 to my grandmother Ekaterina Vasilevna Letova, who was
then 14 years of age, from Saint Petersburg to Moscow. That Kostya’s greeting
card was addressed to “Grandmother and Aunt.” He signed it: “your loving
brother Konstantin”. That card was written after Kostya returned from Moscow where he visited
Katya’s family and enjoyed the hospitality of their home.
Well, he cannot be her brother really, but he can be her first or
second cousin. Who were “Grandmother” and “Aunt” to him exactly?
At that time, the women of the family were: Katya’s sisters (they
would be sisters to Konstantin, wouldn’t they?), their mother Evdokia Vasilevna
Letova nee
Surikova and Evdokia’s mother (Katya’s grandmother)
Pelageya Surikova. It means that Katya’s mother Evdokia Vasilevna was Konstantin’s
aunt, and her mother Pelageya Surikova was his great-aunt. (Great-aunts were
often called grandmothers to show respect.)
It seems that we have found out everything. But something was
still unclear: It was known in our family that Evdokia, the youngest child in
the family, had two older brothers Ivan and Jacob and one older sister Pelageya
(Polya) who lived in Egoryevsk, where Evdokia had acquainted with her future
husband Vasily Letov. Pelageya had daughter Anna and son-in-law A.Kondratev, the
partner of V.A.Letov in the Trading House. Who was that estrange sister?
There are also some pieces of correspondence between Konstantin
and his brother Nikolay. There are a few Konstantin's pictures taken
in summer 1929 when he was at Letov’s summer residence in Bakovka. There is
Ekaterina's photo (she was already surnamed Semenova) with "Nephew"
(as it was written on the card) Leonid Nikolaevich Andrianov, son of Nikolay
Andrianov.
Ocassionally, Nikolay Andrianov's descendants (his grandsons and great-grandsons)
come from Ufa to Moscow for a visit, but they know about their
ancestors much less than I do.....
Let's try to solve that puzzle ourselves.
If Konstantin Sergeevich Andrianov called Evdokia Vasilevna Letov nee
Surikov ‘Aunt’, it means his mother was a sister to Evdokia or sister of Vasily Letov.
It means there was one more Evdokia’s sister or Vasily Letov's sister.
I have found that previously unknown sister of Evdokia! Her name
was Paraskeva and she was older than Evdokia but
younger than Pelageya. The 1869 Household
Censuses of Timshinskaya Volost of Volokolamskiy District of the Moscow Province
mentioned two older daughters of Evdokia's parents – Pelageya 5 y.o. and Paraskeva
1 y.o.
Probably, Paraskeva was Konstantin’s mother. But maybe Evdokia, who was born in 1879, had one more sister; that
sister would be younger than Pelageia and Paraskeva but older than
Evdokia.
Let’s
not forget that the family oral traditions indicate that the Andrianovs moved
to Ufa from Zlatoust, where they were merchants. The
search should continue…
That site in Russian
