It is nearly a hundred years since the Russian Royal family were murdered in a basement by the Bolsheviks. Inside the past two decades DNA that has been used to identify the remains of all 5 children has finally stopped the rumours that a family member had survived, saving the Romanov dynasty.
There was actually a 6th child, born in 1898 of which very little was ever made public, who wasn't present at the massacre, and incredibly has stayed completely unknown to the world at large.
Supposedly still born, he was immediately removed from Russia, and the one or two insiders who were there at that time were murdered to keep it out of the public domain. Tragically he died in 1917, a year before his mother and father, but not before he had fathered a son who grew up in ignorance of his royal lineage.
All this would have stayed hidden had it not been for a curious school master called Alex McBride who was researching his family tree after the death of his mother in 2009, as he has inexplicably inherited several million pounds, a chateau in Belgium, and hasn't got any idea where this sudden wealth has come from, and visits the chateau which turns out to be right in the centre of one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the Great War.
The man who is the current tenant of the chateau tells Alex that his grandfather Willie McBride, a man he knew nothing about, lies in the neighbouring army cemetery. He also tells Alex that his grandfather didn't lose his life in the fighting around the chateau, but was murdered as the young daughter of the chateau fell pregnant by him during the battle of Ypres.
It turns out Willie McBride is Irish after accessing his military records, but despite searching records everywhere, no birth certificate can be found. A visit to Ireland finds a grave, with the same name, and birth-date as Willie, however it is of a small child.
Much researc followed until he discovered the the parents of the dead child went to live in the States right after this in the shortly after the turn of the century, but not before giving a solid gold chalice to their small village church, which is odd as farm labourers don't earn much at all.
The contents of a briefcase show 1 or 2 pictures of Willie, and a bunch of friends who joined the army on the same day in 1916. What they all have in common with Willie is just that there are headstones scattered throughout Southern Ireland of youngsters with the same names and dates of birth as his friends, except they had died and were buried in infancy. Some of their parents emigrated leaving expensive gold chalices, others died mysteriously.
Alex discovers this group of children were all brought up in an orphanage in the first few years of the 20th Century, far out of view in County Mayo on an isolated estate owned by a wealthy English family descended from one of the heroes of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. It would appear that not one of the youngsters, grown to men, survived the Great War.
There was actually a 6th child, born in 1898 of which very little was ever made public, who wasn't present at the massacre, and incredibly has stayed completely unknown to the world at large.
Supposedly still born, he was immediately removed from Russia, and the one or two insiders who were there at that time were murdered to keep it out of the public domain. Tragically he died in 1917, a year before his mother and father, but not before he had fathered a son who grew up in ignorance of his royal lineage.
All this would have stayed hidden had it not been for a curious school master called Alex McBride who was researching his family tree after the death of his mother in 2009, as he has inexplicably inherited several million pounds, a chateau in Belgium, and hasn't got any idea where this sudden wealth has come from, and visits the chateau which turns out to be right in the centre of one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the Great War.
The man who is the current tenant of the chateau tells Alex that his grandfather Willie McBride, a man he knew nothing about, lies in the neighbouring army cemetery. He also tells Alex that his grandfather didn't lose his life in the fighting around the chateau, but was murdered as the young daughter of the chateau fell pregnant by him during the battle of Ypres.
It turns out Willie McBride is Irish after accessing his military records, but despite searching records everywhere, no birth certificate can be found. A visit to Ireland finds a grave, with the same name, and birth-date as Willie, however it is of a small child.
Much researc followed until he discovered the the parents of the dead child went to live in the States right after this in the shortly after the turn of the century, but not before giving a solid gold chalice to their small village church, which is odd as farm labourers don't earn much at all.
The contents of a briefcase show 1 or 2 pictures of Willie, and a bunch of friends who joined the army on the same day in 1916. What they all have in common with Willie is just that there are headstones scattered throughout Southern Ireland of youngsters with the same names and dates of birth as his friends, except they had died and were buried in infancy. Some of their parents emigrated leaving expensive gold chalices, others died mysteriously.
Alex discovers this group of children were all brought up in an orphanage in the first few years of the 20th Century, far out of view in County Mayo on an isolated estate owned by a wealthy English family descended from one of the heroes of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. It would appear that not one of the youngsters, grown to men, survived the Great War.
About the Author:
Ian Smith owns a website on Worldwide Vacation Spots, and his most recent article is Where To Go On Honeymoon, he is also a writer who has researched the Russian Royal Family murdered by the Bolsheviks, and his novel Young Willie McBride about a possible unknown Romanov child who has descendents alive today.
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