From Royalty to Refugees: Uncovering the Incredible Stories of My Family with MyHeritage

I’ve always known that my family had noble roots — at least on my mother’s side. She spoke of it often, and I even knew my great-grandmother personally, a woman who had once owned 12 villages before fleeing Russia. Still, I never realized just how far those noble roots reached until I began exploring my family history on MyHeritage.

Marketa Zvelebil

I’m Marketa Zvelebil, born in Prague to a mix of Russian and Czech family, now living in the serene hills of southern France. As a retired scientist studying cancer and protein structure, I’ve spent much of my life in research, but exploring my family’s past through MyHeritage revealed a different kind of discovery — one that was deeply personal and, at times, completely unexpected.

Tracing noble roots to ancient realms

My mother’s family fled Russia before the revolution and settled in Czechoslovakia. Her grandmother, my great-grandmother Ekaterina Nikolaevna Slavutinsky, was a noblewoman in every sense of the word.

Born in 1877, she believed deeply in fairness and giving others a chance in life. She used her position and resources to fund children’s education in her villages — some all the way through to university. Her husband, Aleksei Stepanovitsh Lomshakov, an engineer and deputy of the State Duma, once met Countess Tolstoy — daughter of Leo Tolstoy — during a visit to the U.S. in the early 1930s.

We had some sense of our noble lineage, but I had no idea just how lofty it was until I dove deeper into my family tree. Through MyHeritage, I traced my maternal line back through the Kievan Rus, a powerful medieval realm, to rulers who shaped Eastern Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries. I was almost bored going back one more generation… and then one more… and then I clicked on the wife of one of the princes. Following her lineage, I ended up face to face with King Harold of England. Yes, the one who died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

I started laughing. I texted my niece in the U.K. immediately, joking, “Well, guess we’re royalty now — 37 generations removed!”

Uncovering a family tragedy

One of the most surprising and poignant discoveries was about my great-grandmother Anna Bouda, born in a small village in Czechoslovakia. Piecing her story together required serious detective work — poring over both paper documents and digital records. I needed to be sure I had the right Anna Bouda, and thankfully, I had my father’s birth certificate to confirm it.

What shocked me most was learning that Anna’s first husband, Vojtěch Šneberger, had been murdered. I found an article in the old Czech newspaper Plzeňské listy from July 1890 that reported how he was fatally stabbed during a fight at the age of 29.

The article in Plzeňské listy about the murder of Marketa’s great-grandmother’s first husband in 1890. Source: OldNews.com

If that tragedy hadn’t occurred, I would not exist. Anna remarried and had more children, including my grandmother.

Through MyHeritage, I connected with the granddaughter of Mr. Šneberger. We now correspond occasionally, and it’s comforting to have this reconnection. I even had some photos of my father’s half-uncles, which I could now place and share. One of them shows Jaroslav Šneberger — the half-brother of my grandmother — sitting with her at a mill in the Czech Republic around 1950. The mill was owned by the husband of my grandmother’s sister.

War, loss, and the complexities of identity

Anna died young, at just 52, from cancer. Despite her short life, she had many children, but the wars took a heavy toll. At least three of her sons died in WWII, each fighting for a different side. My great-uncle Vaclav Michal, though born in Czechoslovakia, was considered an Austrian national and conscripted into the German army.

He defected, was trained by the British to return as an informant in Czechoslovakia, but plans changed. Instead, he fought in Dunkirk and died in April 1945. His brothers died too — one fighting for Russia, the other for Germany.

It’s heartbreaking, and it shows just how fragmented families became in those turbulent times.

And I understand that fragmentation deeply. My own family became refugees when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. That experience, layered onto the stories of my ancestors, made me realize how easily families are scattered by war and history — and how valuable these connections truly are.

Rediscovering long-lost family

Our family has experienced multiple displacements. My mother’s side fled Russia. My own immediate family became refugees when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. MyHeritage helped me understand these migrations more clearly, and unexpectedly brought scattered branches of our family back together.

One of the most touching stories was about my mother’s sister, my aunt Katya, who moved to the U.S. after WWII.

Her husband died young, but they had a son. Decades later, a woman in Romania had been searching for her grandmother’s brother who had disappeared after emigrating to America. For 40 years they searched. One day, she found my family tree on MyHeritage. The names matched. The dates matched. Old photos confirmed it: her grandmother’s brother had married my aunt. We were family. Now, two sides of the family disconnected by war and time are finally linked again.

Digging deeper into a legend on my father’s side of the family

On my father’s side, there were always whispers of a connection to the Baron Veith family, who once owned Castle Semily. My grandfather began researching this before I was born, though he passed away before uncovering the full story.

What I knew for certain is that my great-grandmother, Berta Josefa Marie Knűpferová, was the daughter of Amalie Veith, and Amalie’s father was Anton Veith. Both were born in Semily — the same town where the Barons Veith lived and held their estate. I have documents confirming this lineage.

However, things get more complicated with Anton. His parents are not listed on official documents — a detail that raised questions even for my grandfather. Interestingly, on Amalie’s christening certificate, her godmother is listed as Baroness Veith, which strongly suggested a close family tie. Family stories passed down to me claimed that Anton was the result of an extramarital affair involving a member of the Veith family, which could explain the lack of parentage on his records.

I dug a little deeper and found a Czech historical account that clarified part of the picture. It turns out that Jakob Veith, a wealthy textile industrialist of the late 18th and early 19th century, bought the Semily estate. One of his brothers, Johann, lived in Volary and had a son named Antonín — the very same Anton. He went to work for his uncle Jakob and eventually became the chief official (estate manager) at Castle Semily. Even after the estate was sold to Prince Karl Rohan in 1824, Antonín remained in service and later married Anna, the daughter of a local doctor, Filip Nauman.

So in the end, Anton wasn’t an undocumented son of the Baron himself, but rather the nephew of Jakob Veith, firmly connected to the family and its estate. Whether or not there was a scandal or noble affair involved is still unclear — but at least now, the story has roots I can trace and confirm.

A tool for discovery, connection, and understanding

I started my research on another site, but MyHeritage quickly became my favorite. As a European, I found its records far more relevant, and the user interface made it easy to explore. The Smart Matches have been particularly valuable; many of my most meaningful connections, including the descendants of Anna Bouda’s first husband and the cousin in Kiev, came through those.

DNA matches have helped too, though they’re often distant and we don’t stay in contact. But every hint, every message, every new name adds another piece to the puzzle.

My advice? Be patient. Add as many names as you can. Open every hint and follow it. Reach out when you find a match — you never know who’s on the other side. And always verify: birth and death certificates are your best allies. I’m still chasing one elusive connection and may need to return to the Czech Republic to find the missing documents.

This journey has shown me not only where I come from but how deeply intertwined we all are — across borders, across generations, across the divides of history.

Many thanks to Marketa for sharing her incredible finds with us. If you have also made an amazing discovery with MyHeritage, we’d love to hear about it! Please send it to us via this form or email it to us at stories@myheritage.com.

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Source: My Heritage