Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Ancestors

Yesterday I came across a part of my family tree, the one that is linked to my dad's grandmother Ivana. Filling it up with all the data I could find on the Internet, I got this:

Two people have drawn my attention - Andrej and Elizabeta. He had 14 children with two sisters (seven each) having the same family name. So, they were related! The birth dates reveal that both sisters were giving birth after birth. Elizabeta died at the age 35; my guess - she died of an illness or childbirth or complications at pregnancy.

When I looked at the birth and death dates of their children, another story was revealed to me - three of them, the youngest ones then, died within 14 days. My guess - an illness. That must have been terrible for Elizabeta.

My grand-grandmother was born four years after that. She had never really known her mother because Elizabeta died when little Ivana was less than two years old. She lost her father at the age of 13. Andrej, as it is written in this family tree, died a few days after his last son was born. Probably he would had more children if he hadn't died at the age of 54.

I can only imagine how hard life was for Elizabeta or even Ana, her sister, who probably took care for the children after her death. I live an easy life compared to my grand-grand-grandmother's. Many people lived in that house, I really wonder what they were doing to have food on their table every day. How did they look like? Could they read and write? I have many questions but no answers. My dad is not interested in this and he doesn't know his relatives who still live there. But my aunt does. She promised that we would visit those places in spring. I hope that this will be soon because if I could understand correctly, a grandchild of Ivana's brother is still alive, at the age of 90. Maybe he could reveal more stories about my ancestors lives, perhaps he has some old photos, too. This is Ivana with my grandmom (look at Ivana's dress and my grandmom's bow!):

It is amazing to know how many people had to live that I am here today. This is one more reason to be grateful for being in this world.

3 comments:

Kačja pastirica said...

Se strinjam, zanimivo je vedeti kdo vse so bili naši predniki in smo zaradi njih na svetu. Včasih se mi zdi, da vemo veliko več o drugih kot o lastnih sorodnikih, kar je žalostno. Namesto, da bi bili bolj povezani smo ravno nasprotno, odtujeni.

Feronia said...

What a lovely way of looking at things, Pina :)

Pina said...

@Kačja pastirica: Dejstvo je, da tudi jaz ne vem kaj dosti o sorodnikih, ki še živijo. Na žalost je včasih tako, da se komu zameriš (navsezadnje tudi, da so starši v kakšnem prepiru s sorodniki, ti pa kot otrok ne znaš oceniti, kaj je res in kaj ne), potem so pa takoj triči trači in različni grdi pogledi in neprijetni pogovori, zaradi česar se potem z njimi ne družiš. Včasih mora miniti le nekaj časa, da se dvignjeni prah poleže, včasih pa zamere trajajo tudi po tem, ko te ni več. Žal je tako.