Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Russian Girl Revisited


I think most of us want to know more about our heritage.  Where did our parents, grandparents come from?  This connection to the past is sometimes hidden, sometimes not discussed with the unspoken understanding that questions are not to be asked.  We either turn the pages, close the book to our history or?


For years my father's past was and still is a mystery.  I have a few clues, but not much more.  He was a young White Russian (White Russians supported the Tsar  during the 1917 Revolution and during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920).  My father did not want us to know his real name or anything about his father whose picture was cut from the few photographs we have.  I am not sure of my father's real name which he changed when he came to this country.


Many Europeans and others who came to this country fleeing famine, hard times, political changes, and fear for their lives, preferred to begin again and to hide their past.  My father became a citizen of the United States under his new name.  Both my parents died when I was in my 20's, and I was not interested in asking the sensitive questions before and then it was too late. Through a class I am taking in Russian History before 1917, my interest is renewed.


Any bloggers interested in Genealogy?  Is it important to you?  And, what was your most helpful source of information?




PS My Russian relatives visited last week and I was hopeful that I would gain some information about how I could learn  more about my dad. My cousin said, "N. no one in Russia, at least the younger population cares what happened before 1917."  Hmm, I thought.  And. . .I have a friend who will vacation in Moscow and St. Petersburg soon.  She was told that as you enter the restaurants, they look at your shoes.  So, for some it's designer dresses, shoes and bags.  Now that the economic situation is better for those with good jobs, that is how it is.  And drinking expensive Scotch, I heard.

13 comments:

  1. i have a great interest in genealogy but i haven't yet gone any further than my mother and fathers old papers and things---very interesting post--thanks for sharing

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    1. I think it's an important thing to pass on to our children, but something they will appreciate later in their life, not now.

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  2. Thank you for your comment and for telling me about the IKEA thing - that sounds great! I wonder if our IKEA does similar events, I'll have to find out!

    We still do the May pole thing in my home town in England! It is quaint and so old fashioned, but super sweet since it's usually young ballet dancers who take part. It's a nice tradition I think :)

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    1. And wow, this is such an interesting post! I'm interested in genealogy but haven't looked into anything. My aunt is tracing our family tree somehow and I know that our family has a very long line that goes way way back. So that's pretty cool :) But such an interesting story about your father, it must have been strange not knowing his real name. So mysterious! Great post!

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  3. Thanks Nikki. I'll tell you all about the IKEA celebration if we go. We did both the Easter and Christmas celebration; the food was wonderful and my son and I danced the folk dances with the group. A little bit of Sweden here in Colorado.

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  4. I'm packing some pretty good Go Into The Restaurant Shoes. Just will have to carry them in a bag while I walk around in my favorite tennies! Should be interesting to see if the reports are true! I love this post. Good luck finding out more about your parents!

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  5. Would love for you to be my guest blogger when you come back from Russia, pictures and impressions. Hope you will do it.

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  6. My experience is that no one cares about genealogy until she (mostly) gets older. My Scandinavian Genealogy Society group here in Portland is mainly gray heads. From this group I've learned about wonderful free resources on line, especially the Mormon webiste www.familysearch.com, or maybe it's org, can't remember. Anyway I've found a treasure trove there as well as on Norwegian and Danish archive sites. Ancestry.com has captured a lot of information and expects you to pay for it.
    Once you get started on these searches they become addictive, so schedule them. Otherwise you will find it's 2am and you're hot on a trail you just can't give up.

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  7. Thanks Pam: I will look into those. You are right, it must be the time thing. We have less "time" when we get older, so we need to do our family projects a little faster. Women seem to be more interested than men--are they more patient or are they more into relationships then men? Thanks for stopping by.

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  8. What an interesting post. My older brother started digging into our past in a big way, and has found a wealth of information by joining ancestry.com and by studying census materials, both from the US and from Europe. He's found various birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, and all kinds of interesting stories dating back many generations. I find it somewhat interesting, but a sterile collection of names and dates doesn't have nearly as much meaning to me as my album of old old family photographs. Something about those old sepia and B&W pictures absolutely mesmerize me. It seems the old cameras did a better job capturing and suspending a moment in time than modern photography does. Anyway, I wish you luck. I can understand, with so much mystery involved, why you might want to find some answers.

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    1. I agree. Those old photographs sometimes tell more than any written description; they also remind me to always write on the back of photos, at least those that are printed, not so many these days. I wonder if that's a good thing.

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  9. I'm a 16th French and 16th Dark Dorset (Venetian heritage). That's what gives me my slightly green tinge when I tan. I haven't really dug into my family tree before, but it could be interesting. There's whole branches of my family I don't know about- Something about a family dispute between 15 children a few generations back!

    As for the comment you left me: I would love to help you any way I can, is there any email I could contact you by?

    - Amber.

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    1. Amber: Your reply makes me think of Browning's poem,"My Last Duchess," I rewrote it for a writing challenge, February 19th on the list on the right. I would very much like to give you my email. And I will leave it on your blog as well. natasha.r@comcast.net

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