The impersonation of real people

Mr "von Wettinberg" has now begun impersonating real people on Alexa where he is very protective of his website having written 25 Five Star reviews under different accounts. Wettinberg has impersonated HSH Alexander, the Hereditary Prince of Isenburg who we are led to believe has taken the time to write a review of the "Almanach de Saxe Gotha"

"Almanach de Saxe Gotha" (almanachdegotha.org)

Having contacted the real owners of the Almanach de Gotha and having it confirmed by them that that almanachdegotha.org is not the Almanach de Gotha website or authorised by them the owner of almanachdegotha.org has re added the "Saxe" part. In spite of this there are still a number of concerns especially regarding the Commercial Directory, the copied genealogies and the "Societe des Amis de l'Almanach de Saxe Gotha".

Almanach de Gotha (almanachdegotha.org)

Is almanachdegotha.org the official website of the Almanach de Gotha like it implies? The answer is no and this appears to be a dishonest attempt to illegally usurp the name of the famous book and the legal rights of the owners of the Almanach de Gotha name, Justus Perthes and Almanach de Gotha Ltd. You can see from the bottom of the page it says "Almanach de Saxe Gotha" and this is what the website used to be called before dropping the 'Saxe' part in 2011, as can be verified using theWayback Machine. I imagine this has been done because the real Almanach de Gotha website (almanachdegotha.com) went offline around 2006, and an edition of the book has not been published since 2004. And so the publication seemed dead. However a new edition of the real Almanach de Gotha, the book, is supposed to be released on 15 March 2012.

The website almanachdegotha.org was registered on 13 November 2006 by "Prince Karl Fredericke Deutschland Herzog von Swabia" and the "Registrant Organisation" was given as "The Private of His Imperial and Royal Highness Prince Karl Fredericke of Germany". "Karl Fredericke" also "Prince Karl Friedrich of Germany" and "Karl von Wettinberg" (a name he adopted by deed pole) in the late 1990's proclaimed himself "Holy Roman Emperor". Wettinberg lives in Teddington, Middlesex, London. He used to list himself on the website but has apparently removed any mention of himself once he usurped the Almanach de Gotha name. In an article in the Independent his mother "Maria von Wettinberg" (who also changed her name) claims they are "completely sane". The domain registrant of almanachdegotha.org is now hidden saying just "Domain Discreet" and no name is given on the website itself. another of Karl von Wettinberg's websites is imperialteutonicorder.com.

Now we know this is a fake Almanach de Gotha website the next question is where did all the content come from? If you click on the Duchy of Anhalt entry for instance their is a very interesting history.....that has been copied and pasted from Wikipedia. And what about the genealogies? Well these have been copied and pasted from the Online Gotha website. Lets compare the entry on Franceat the Online Gotha and the entry on France at almanachdegotha.org. They are identical. There are some blank entries on the site such as one on the Ottoman Empire, presumably because there is no genealogy online for them copy and paste.

On the website itself, the layout of the genealogies are quite frankly awful as there is no indenting between different generations. The entries on the families are completely different to how they are listed in the real Almanach de Gotha, the books, where the head of the family is listed first followed by children, siblings, nephews/nieces, uncles/aunts, cousins and so on. Where the website owner has actually done something themselves they can’t even mange get something as simple as getting the name of a royal house correct. Apparently the Brazilian House of Orleans-Braganza is now also the Royal House of Portugal. The correct Royal House of Portugal is of course just the House of Braganza.