text:  His family by the paternal side was one of the most ancient and distinguished in the empire and was descended from Ratcha a German--probably a Teutonic knight--who settled in Muscovy in the thirteenth century and took service under Alexander Nevskii (1252-1262 ) and who is the parent root from which spring many of the most illustrious houses in Russia--those of Pushkin of Buturlin of Kamenskii and of Meteloff