Kirchhoffer Family circa 1914
I have my Great Grandmother’s mouth. She died 14 years before I was born, but the genes live on. She is the matriarch in a family photo from 1914. The faces staring back at me look vaguely familiar although most of them died long ago. By the time I came along, the surviving members were senior citizens, well past their prime.
I’ve been gathering information about our family tree for many years. Being the first born gave me an advantage with the older relatives. I spent many happy hours visiting my grandparents and listening to their stories about the “Old Country”. We sat in the dining room, sipping homemade wine and eating my Grandmother’s cookies as the tales unfolded. I was very curious and loved to hear about their customs and traditions from Europe. They always used to say “someone should write this down”. Now, almost 50 years later, I have taken up the task.
I have always been interested in our family history. My great grandfather used to show me a wedding photo taken in 1912. He would point to each person, tell me their name and talk about their life. He told me that our ancestors migrated from south western Germany to Austria-Hungary over 300 years ago. They settled along the Danube River and lived peacefully, always keeping their traditional language, religion and customs. I now have proof of this fact. This became an Ethnic group known as "The Donauschwaben".Since embarking on this journey into the past, I traced one branch of the family tree to 1707. They were born in Freiburg in south-western Germany. I did a search on Google and was able to zoom in on the rooftops of this town. It was very emotional for me. I felt like Alex Haley when he found his ancestor, Kunte Kinte in the Roots saga.
Why do we hold that fascination for the past? For me, it’s a longing to understand the big picture and know where I fit in. I am very curious about the people who lived and loved and eventually led to me. Who were they? What kind of people were they? How did they make a living? How similar were they to me? How did they die? So many questions remain. With the help of my mom, Anne and my Aunt Rosi, I have been able to build a remarkable family tree. Their stories and personal memories have been a great foundation for my research.
The further we go back, the more relatives we have. Dr. Spencer Wells, the world renowned Geneticist has proven that we are all descended from a small group of Homo-Sapiens who lived in Africa and then migrated to the far corners of the world as one generation gave rise to the next. This story is written in our genes and we are just learning how to interpret it.
When we think of our ancestors we usually focus on one or two branches. We talk about this or that Great Grandfather or Grandmother. But there are so many more people who have contributed their DNA. We forget that each one of us has 8 great-grandparents and 16 great-great-grandparents. The number of relatives increases exponentially with each generation. I followed one branch of the family to my 7th-great-grandmother. I know her name, Angelique (she was French) but there were also 511 more ancestors from that generation who are still waiting to be discovered. We are all the endpoint of a tremendous gene pool until we pass it on to our descendants.
Many cultures throughout the world venerate their departed relatives. Small altars are set up and food offerings are made in a symbolic gesture to honour their memory. Before all the costumes and candy and revelry took over, Halloween used to be a time to remember the dead. All Souls Day was a time to visit the graveyard and spend some time in quiet reflection about our loved ones who passed away.
Now, we remember our past thru research and building family trees. Through the Ancestry program, I have connected with all sorts of distant cousins. Some remain aloof and politely detached while others have embraced this new media and share my enthusiasm for our roots. We all owe our existence to those who came before, lived their lives, and raised their young.
I come from sturdy stock. One of my great-grandmothers had 3 husbands and outlived them all. She raised 6 children to adulthood and ensured that all of them had a career.
Divorce was not an option, but dying was very popular. If you were unhappy in your marriage, you only had to wait a few years. One of you would probably die. Diseases such as Scarlet Fever and Tuberculosis were rampant. One set of Great-grandparents lost 2 daughters to the disease. Try to imagine burying one child only to return home from the funeral and discovering that another had died. Even the most trivial infections could prove fatal. They had a lot of children, but many did not live to adulthood.
There was no government pension, welfare or employment insurance. People had to be very resourceful to survive. Families were not as spread out as they are today and many generations lived and died in one small town. Moving or travelling was unheard of. Weddings, Funerals and Church Holidays filled their spiritual and social needs. They didn’t have the luxury of questioning their personal happiness. They were too busy surviving (or dying).
We are the survivors of the survivors. In countless circumstances, our existence was hanging by a thread. Change anything and we would never have been born. It makes one really appreciate this life we have been granted.
If time travel were possible, I would go back a thousand years to have a peek; and then 5000 or even 10000 years. It’s hard to imagine, but we had direct ancestors living that long ago. Since the Time Machine only existed in HG Wells’ classic novel, I need to be content with the research available today.
This project has taught me a great deal. I’ve learned persistence, determination, patience and appreciation. It is a voyage of self discovery and a quest for the truth. My descendants may or may not be interested, but I leave it to them and their children.
