Cyprus-Forum.com

by **foxontherox** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:37 am

Before I launch off, is "general chat" the place for family history banter, or is there a more appropriate forum?

by **Aris** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:59 am

Go ahead. If there is a more appropriate place your thread will be move there.

by **foxontherox** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 1:34 am

Thanks. For those interested I'll tell the whole piece, then it will be clear where the Cyprus bits fit in..

My wife's father, Charles Anthony Wratislaw, was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1925. He was a British subject, being the son of an ex-pat called Harry Wratislaw. Harry spent most of his life in the East, being the son of Albert Charles Wratislaw, a decorated member of the (British) Levant Consular Service. The Wratislaws were very much English middle-class in the 19th century, being solicitors, scholars and headmasters before ACW married a lady called Gertrude Evelyn Cumberbatch who was decended from Caribbean plantation owners and before that from the English and thereby European royal families of the Middle Ages. The name Wratislaw is Czech - Count Marc Wratislaw (ggrandfather of ACW) allegedly having emigrated to England from Bohemia during the religious fall-out from the Thirty Years War in 1770.

Back to Harry, my wife's grandfather. He was born in Smyrna in 1890 and was back in England at a prep school in Norfolk during the 1901 census. The story of his life after this is rather vague. It would seem that he returned somewhere to the Ottoman Empire, whether or not living with his parents is unclear (ACW was Consul-General in Tabriz (now Iran) from 1903-1909, Consul-General for Crete (now Greece) 1909-1913 and Consul-General for Salonika (again now Greece) during the Great War. According to Harry's surviving daughters (Sonia Journes and Lily Evans) whom I have interviewed, he settled in Aleppo and during the War he was held as a "free prisoner" of the Turks at his home. Something like house arrest I suppose.

At this point we meet Prince family. Of all my extended family, the marriage certificate of Harry Wratislaw and Victoria Claire Prince is the only one I cannot find from the 20th century. I have been through British overseas records and to the Syrian government to no joy. Lily Evans was told that they married in Aleppo in 1916 and that TE Lawrence was a witness! However, the secretary of the TE Lawrence Society has never heard of the name Wratislaw in any of his papers. We know that that Sonia Wratislaw was baptised in San Sophia Church, Constantinople in 1916 and was presumbly born in that city in 1916, where again the family were probably "free prisoners" of the Ottomans. The Prince family were French-speaking and I guess that the Aleppo Wratislaws grew up with French as a first language with plenty of English and Arabic too. Harry went on to get a dream job as "Inspector of the Ottoman Dette (sic)" which I think took him up to retirement after WWII. His four children drifted back to Britain or France where they married and settled and all had children. CAW continued to be mobile until he settled with his and children in Essex, England in the 1970s, which is where I met my wife, Charlotte Claire.

So going backwards with the Prince family, I don't have much information on Victoria Claire, except that she was baptised at Santa Crucis Church (RC), Nicosia, Cyprus as "Victoria Clara" on 30 August 1893 showing the date of birth as 3 January. As I said, she was born into the French-speaking Catholic community in Cyprus. Although baptised in Nicosia, Lily Evans is sure that her mother was born in Larnaca. Her father was Ernest (or Ernesto - I think that Italian might have been the medium of the Roman Church in Cyprus at that time. I don't know much about him except that he moved to Aleppo (with his family) at some time and he died there in 1925 according both to Lily and Sonia. Ernest had a brother who must have been the father or your Elise & Rosa (I have these names from Ernest's probate papers). It was Lily who told me that Ernest was supposedly decended from Crusaders - a French family that once originated near Toulouse (the Lusignans?)

Ernest married a lady - allegedly very beautiful - called Emma Cosma. Sonia holds Emma's baptism certificate at her home in Paris. She was born in 1873, and I think her family was also Catholic, but Italian speaking. I imagine that the Italian element (called the Latin Community) go back to the occupation of the Venetians in the 15th-16th centuries. Emma's father was Lorenzo Cosma and his parents were Michael Cosma and Marie (interestingly) nee Prince. Lorenzo married a lady called Marianna Bosgiovich. She held a slavic name because her father, Giacomo Bosgiovich was from Dubrovnic (now Croatia), or Ragusa as it was known under Italian occupation. I have names of her ancestors in Ragusa back to mid-18th century.

Lorenzo & Marianna Cosma had 5 children apart from Emma and from them (via the Santi family) is descended both Benito Mantovani, who i understand is currently the political leader of the Cypriot Latins (2nd cousin to Charles Anthony Wratislaw) and Roberto Prince, the only contact in the family that I have in Cyprus (he is also a second cousin of CAW). Roberto has been attempting to help me with research and confirms the legend of crusader connections and informs me of another branch of the family in Lebanon.

Anybody know any more about these Princes?

by **Bosgiovich** » Sat Sep 10, 2005 8:19 pm

I have just read the last post about the Prince family and their family links with Cosma Bosgiovich family.
My mother is called Emma Cosma Bosgiovich, she was born in 1922 in Barcelona Spain. Her father was called Antonio Cosma Bosgiovich who died in Madrid in 1936, and she has never known any of her relatives. She only keeps some very old pictures and postcards that comes from Larnaca, Cyprus.
Anybody know something about her family? I would be pleased to know something, whatever.
If you want to contact me you can do it at [email protected]