THE KARDASHIANS' CONNECTION TO ARMENIA
Robert Kardashian, father of Kim, Kourtney, Khloe and Robert Jr, was a third-generation Armenian American.
The celebrity lawyer, who passed away in 2003 just eight weeks after being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, passed on his pride in his heritage to his family, who have been vocal about their Armenian roots.
Robert's ancestors fled the Armenian Genocide in the early 20th century, thanks to a 'prophet' who urged them to uproot to America.
Known at the time as the Kardaschoffs, in Russian style, the family made their way from their home village of Karakale in the late 19th Century to German ports. From there, they travelled to a new life in America on the passenger vessels SS Brandenberg and SS Koln.
By doing so, they escaped the triple horror of the First World War from 1914-18, the 'Armenian Genocide' starting in 1915 - exactly a century ago this year - and the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Among those fleeing Erzurum - then in Armenia, and ruled by last Russian Tsar Nicholas II was family patriarch Hovhannes Miroyan and Kim's great great grandfather, born in 1844. He married Luciag Chorbajian, born in 1853.
The couple wed in Erzurum, which is now in Turkey, in 1867 but escaped along with their daughter Vartanoosh Mironyan, born in 1886, in the early 20th century.
Vartanoosh's distinctly blonde daughter Haigoohi Arakelian - known as Helen, born in America in 1917, the year the Bolshevik Revolution rocked the Russian Empire - was Kim's grandmother, who later married into the Kardashian clan.
The glamorous and 'dynamic' Helen wed Arthur who ran the largest meat-packing business in southern California.
Helen's son Robert married Kris Houghton and fathered the 21st Century's biggest reality TV stars Kourtney, Khloe, Robert Jr and most famous of all - Kim.
Their mother Kris eventually married Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner and together they raised two more TV personalities, Kendall and Kylie.
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