The oldest member of the former Ottoman Empire The oldest member of the dynasty that ruled the former Ottoman Empire Neslisah Sultan was the granddaughter of the last Ottoman sultan, Mehmed VI. She was the last member of the Ottoman dynasty to be born before the empire was disbanded in 1922 in the wake of World War I and modern Turkey created in its place by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. After the death in 2009 of Ertugrul Osman Osmanoglu, the last pretender to the Ottoman throne, Neslisah Sultan took the title of 'oldest member of the Osmanogullari family', the Ottoman dynasty. The royal family was forced into exile in 1924 and female members were only allowed to return in the 1950s. Males remained barred from the country until 1974. Neslisah Sultan grew up in Nice, France after being exiled since she was 3 years old, when the Ottoman family left Istanbul. She grew up to speak French, English, German and Arabic. Her Imperial Highness Fatma Neslsah Sultan had been born in a royal palace overlooking the Bosporus when her grandfather still notionally reigned over the remains of a vast, intercontinental realm. She passed away officially called as Mrs Osmanoglu in the Ortakoy neighbourhood of Istanbul on the west bank of the Bosporus where she lived for three decades.