Imagine, when you were young that you overheard the conversations around the kitchen table. The "grown-ups“ spoke about places far away and unknown to you. Occasionally you caught hold of something that had some special meaning to you. So you grew up in belief of these selective memories, and you lived your life according to their special meaning that somehow your ancestors were extraordinary.
Skip ahead fifty or sixty some odd years to find yourself poised for the trip of a lifetime. A return to the place of your family's origin, and an exploration into those vague recollections of the dream you once dreamed. This is the point where myth comes face to face with reality. What is to be done when the expectations differ so much that they cast doubt on what is to be found? What is to be done?
This is the story of one such reunion. One of many, this tale was chosen for it’s message, that in every myth there is some thread of truth. Some point from where the young mind departs on a journey of fantasy, and in so doing creates a reality of it’s very own. A contradiction which could have simply been left at loose ends, was bravely faced and the true meaning that finally emerged was appreciated that much more. Thus, being “from the nobility” was not what it seemed.
This was one of our earliest assignments that not only required research in the archives, examining old parish registers of births, marriages and deaths, but also the detective work necessary to locate living relatives, and the precise location of an ancestral home. In both cases, our efforts succeeded, and based on the details that we were provided, there was no question that we had found the correct records and the ancestral home. The elderly woman we found living in the house in fact was a non-blood relation (the widow of the true relative), and she welcomed the visit.
This, however, is where our work became complicated. As we arrived to the village with our client, she insisted that there must be some error in our work. She was quite certain that her family was from something far more grand than a simple farm house in a small agricultural village. She recalled quite well that her uncles had said that the family was “from the nobility”. Such a thing had not occurred to us, since the records all agreed so well with all the data we had been provided. Thus, only one question remained. Should the visit go ahead as planned? Since someone was waiting, the client graciously agreed, but not without a certain amount of trepidation.
We were met by an elderly woman who lived alone in an old farm house, in a sad state of disrepair. She was surrounded by dogs and cats. Once inside her house, we sat at a table in her kitchen, which was obviously her bedroom as well. I suppose the atmosphere could be described as quite rustic, especially for someone not familiar to such things. And yet our client, along with her husband, bravely sat down for what we thought would be a short, polite, visit. Only when our host opened a shoebox filled with family pictures, did the expression of sober disbelief turn to amazement in the face of our client. She reach into a bag, which she had brought along, to reveal that she had exactly the same pictures. This was a moment that defies words… She was home!
The visit continued in a much more animated and emotional way, with a wealth of questions and curiosity and gift giving. When it was time to leave, however, there was still one question that was left unanswered. The question, “How could my uncles have lied?” This brought tears to her eyes. It was an unfathomable question that left her speechless. And yet the day was not done, there was still one more place to visit. In the next village, the two brothers (her uncles) lived before they moved to America.
Our host in this second village was a retired teacher with a chronicle. The significance of finding such a person, possessing such a record, cannot be overstated. In this case the chronicle contained detailed information about each home and family that had lived in this village as far back as the 19th century. Upon these pages we found the names of the uncles, recording the tenure and departure to America of two young brothers. This chronicle also tracked the name of each farm, since before the farms were numbered in the 18th century, each farm and house had it’s own unique name (typically after a family name or some geographic description).
Thus, we discovered that these two brothers had been pub keepers here in this village. The name of this pub was “U Šlechty” (at the Nobility). It is difficult to describe the absolute joy that erupted at the table with this revelation. And so, there was no betrayal after all. It had only been the unfortunate misunderstanding in the mind of a young girl. At the end of the day, it was a reunion full of meaning, which concluded in a comforting satisfaction. A truth revealed, and left to ponder.
Not every trip reaches such a nice conclusion, though and quite often genealogy leads to even more questions. Overall, though, I chose to use this trip to illustrate that, without ever having ventured into someplace which appears to contradict everything we may assume about our ancestors, we might never know the truth. In fact, the truth is in the stories (and in this case the chronicle and the shoebox) of the people we meet.
