Who Am I?

Where did my family come from? When? How did I get to be where I am today? Who and what made me who I am?

I have started tracing my ancestry on numerous occasions but I become distracted and rarely get far. My mother once handed me a pile of papers and asked me to shred them. With a writer's curiosity I decided to investigate first. They must have belonged to my grandmother, a woman of little warmth and a love for whisky. Insurance certificates mingled with old photos and notices of births and deaths. I remember discovering that one of my ancestors had been the Mayor of an English seaside town, but not much else. I never really felt particularly connected to my mother's family and I have no idea where those papers are now. Maybe I'll search for them when I move again. Maybe I won't.

My father's family, well that is a different story. Serbian nationals living in an idyllic rural area of Croatia. I have heard stories over the years, although rarely from Dad who had suffered unimaginable trauma at the hands of the Ustase (pro-German Croatian Fascists) who murdered most of his family during WWII, along with hundreds of thousands of other Serbs and many Jewish people. My first attempt at tracing my ancestry led me to Lvov, in Ukraine, not far from the Polish border, a city with strong links to the Austro-Hungarian empire. It seemed possible that my family had been academics who were persecuted and left for a more peaceful life. Which hopefully they had for at least a few generations. I'd like to think that some of my ancestors found peace in their lifetimes.

More recent forays into the depths of the Google empire have resulted in the discovery that one of my ancestors was a military man who served Serbian royalty and had a very distinguished career. Sadly, he must have upset the applecart somehow as he died in poverty and obscurity in Vienna.

I know that Croatia always felt more like home to me than England ever did and I am grateful for the memories I have of long, hot summers on the beautiful Istrian peninsula. I know I have inherited great strength from both of my parents along with the fearlessness to explore, jump into the unknown and grab opportunity by the balls. Even now, when my body is failing me, my mind is a sharp as a razor and there is still so much I want to do. My appetite for travel may have diminished but my curiosity and compassion remain. My ancestors have been part of the problem and the solution.