abstract
| - Felix (a common name for illegitimate children) was brought up by Elisabeth Khitrovo (ru), a famous salon-holder who was a daughter of Prince Kutuzov and the mother of Dorothea de Ficquelmont. It has been widely rumored that Felix Elston was the natural son of Khitrovo's eldest daughter, Countess Ekaterina Tiesenhausen (a lady-in-waiting to King Frederick William IV of Prussia's sister, Empress Alexandra of Russia) and Prince Augustus of Prussia. It appears more likely that Felix's parents were Karl Alexander Anselm Freiherr von Hügel (Regensburg, April 25, 1795 – Brussels, June 2, 1870) [himself the son of Johann Aloys Josef Hügel, later 1st Freiherr von Hügel (Koblenz, November 14, 1753 – Regensburg, 1826) and wife Anna von Holthof, married in 1787] by Jozefa Gräfin Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka (Košice (Kassa), April 8, 1790 – 1868), a relative of Gyula Andrássy, married (in Košice (Kassa), February 7, 1808) to Miklós Graf Forgách de Ghymes et Gács (1784 – Nagyszalánc (Slanec), January 10, 1857), by whom she had three sons, all of whom died unmarried and without any issue. Recent investigations taken by one of his great-granddaughters and an English genealogist practically confirm this late ancestry, not explaining, however, the motives why he didn't use his father's name but Elston, his English nanny's surname.
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