Article: Two questions and no answers: A long search for...

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Article: Two questions and no answers: A long search for my ancestry and identity.

Wonderful and moving family history fulled with deep thoughts and genealogy hints by Ute.

An abstract from the story:

"(...)The conditions my father was brought up in during the years of the Great Depression in the 1920s and 1930s are unimaginable to us who, for the most part, never had to worry about where the next meal would come from, if we had decent clothes to go to school in, if we could afford to see a doctor and get the health care we needed, or if the rent would be paid on time. My father experienced his father's struggles to support his wife and 10 children working as a roofer in Chicago and his father's death from falling off a scaffold to the pavement below while working on a building. Like his father, he worked hard and invested all his energy in creating a better life for himself and his children than he had it when he grew up. Both generations, the immigrant generation as well as the first generation born in the United States, were too busy dealing with the present, with getting ahead economically and socially, to worry about the past. It is us, the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of the first immigrants, who are asking the questions now and are rediscovering our ancestors' culture and roots in a country that is 'foreign' to us, whose language we don't speak, but to which we nevertheless feel deeply connected.(...)

People are sometimes surprised when I tell them that I'm researching my family history. Some are interested and ask questions, others argue that the past is over and done with and that it is more important to live in the present and to look at the future rather than wasting time dwelling on the past. I agree that we should live in the present and enjoy what we have now, but we must not forget that the good life most of us have today is the result of our parents', grandparents' and greatgrandparents' hard work and struggles. Like a tree that is blossoming and producing fruit because it is well connected to its roots, we are doing fine, not because we are separated from the past, but because we are connected to our roots and to the roots of past generations.(...)"

For full article click here: http://polishorigins.com/document/two_questions_and_no_answers .