Apart from St. Andrew's registers, the (auto-)biographical books written in English and some of the English genealogical sources, my main source for names is the Moscow Address Books. All of those are in Russian, which leads to the following difficulties:
Below you will find the links to the information on British families that lived in Moscow in the 19th - early 20th century. I'm trying to gradually organise all this information. So far I have only completed the following names: McGill, Gibson, Piggott/Billet, Hopper and almost completed Colley. The Smith page is right now under construction. New information on completed names is very likely to be added, as it is all a huge work in progress.
- The Russian transliteration sometimes makes the surnames unrecognisable and therefore not very easily transliterated back into English. You have to guess a lot and it doesn't always work.
- Practically all of the British people, especially those who lived in Russia on a permanent basis, acquired the Russian equivalents of the English names. Thus, William would become Vassily; John - Ivan; George - either Egor or Georg, Jane - Evgenia, Walter - Vladimir, Archibald - Arkhip, etc.
Below you will find the links to the information on British families that lived in Moscow in the 19th - early 20th century. I'm trying to gradually organise all this information. So far I have only completed the following names: McGill, Gibson, Piggott/Billet, Hopper and almost completed Colley. The Smith page is right now under construction. New information on completed names is very likely to be added, as it is all a huge work in progress.
Most British families in pre-revolutionary Moscow were connected by marriage. Even more so - by being sponsors at baptisms and witnesses at marriages. If all these connections could be put together, I'm sure you would get one huge family. But even if only connections by marriage are taken into account, true family ties, you get several big "webs" like the following:
Here below is the list (updated as of 13 June, 2023) of all last names that I have come across so far. Some of these people and families I know quite well, others I may only know very little about - a couple of dates, a grave, a mentioning. There are many German, French and Russian names on this list. Some of them are just baptism sponsors or witnesses of marriages, some, however, are relatives of British families. It is quite interesting and exciting to see some famous Russian surnames like Pushkin, Golitzin, Rimsky-Korsakov or Grand Duke Romanov among them - not necessarily the people everyone knows, but at least members of their families. You will see question marks next to many names - this is because it was impossible to accurately decipher them from the signatures of their owners, most of whom were witnesses at marriages. This is a comprehensive list. I do not think I will make any major changes to it any time soon. I'm mostly basing it on the 1825-1920 English Church in Moscow registers and 1880-1920 British Vice-Consulate in Moscow registers - which I have now processed completely. There are 2830 surnames all in all, of which about 2 thousand, I believe, are British.
A small update as of 23 Aug 2023 : 1 more name - Maetzker
And one more, of 25 March 2024: William Iles, 1876