Alexandra von Dyhrn

Alexandra Maria Catharina von Dyhrn (8 September 1873 – 9 April 1945) was a German genealogist, author and the first woman in the province of Silesia to earn a doctorate.

Alexandra's father, Count Conrad Johannes von Dyhrn, was a lieutenant colonel and a hereditary member of the Prussian House of Lords.

Alexandra, together with her sisters and her mother Cornelia, temporary moved to Berlin to stay at the apartment of her Aunt Princess Josephine of Vasilchikov (née Countess Dyhrn), who was a widow.

[2] In 1899, Cornelia Countess Dyhrn bought a smaller estate in Badewitz (district Leobschütz, now Głubczyce, Poland) in Upper Silesia at the Silesian border with Czech Republic, where she and her two younger daughters moved to, Alexandra on the other side bought a pleasant apartment in Breslau and began in 1900 with her studies at the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland).

Alexandra joined the German Association for Women's education and University studies and was a strong defender of female rights.

[3] She worked at the University of Breslau as an assistant Professor, she was giving historical lectures in several German archives and devoted herself to genealogical researches.

During the following years, Alexandra dedicated herself to writing and publishing her historic genealogical works, she had many clients, but the family fortune was slipping through her fingers very fast as she – an unmarried feministic aristocrat – had to take care of her two disabled sisters and wanted to preserve a lifestyle the three of them were used to have.

[4] Before World War II, Alexandra was the most prestigious and respected genealogist in Breslau, but the reputation she gained through her competence and work, did not help her a lot with her financial troubles.

[citation needed] As the member of the Association for History of Silesia Alexandra Dyhrn was frequently publishing her researches in the Schlesische Geschichtblätter.