[I have spent hours reading the diary of my Great Aunt Dora. The story begins all full of the hopes of a young 18-year-old first-generation Australian girl whose parents had migrated from Germany to South Australia around 1877. I know her story, I knew and loved my great Aunt Dora. She will never marry. One of many women of her time, when, after World War 1, there were not enough men to go around. I imagine this is what life in the 1920’s was like for her, a maiden aunt caring for her parents.]
Dora
She had one once. Before the war. He came from Hamburg. A distant relative from the family. But the Great War intruded. He was the enemy. Interned. Never to return. She perched on the bench in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Watching. Men promenading in pale pinstriped suits, on their arms women in their frilly-white Sunday best, giggling. Easy for the men, she thought. Pick and choose. Pick and choose. Even the damaged men, the cripples, have a chance. She sniffed. What about me? Is that my future? Caring for my aging parents? No choice but to be an old maid?
Recently, my mother sent me an article about my paternal uncle. In it, he claimed to have ancestry extending back to Titus, a Greek convert to Christianity and the apostle Paul’s missionary companion. The author of the article took the claim with a grain of salt, saying, “Be that as it may …”
The article was written in the 1990s, way before we knew much about DNA. It was published when the internet was in its infancy and before research tools such as Wikipedia, and genealogical platforms such as Ancestry and My Heritage existed.
So, how did my uncle figure we were descendants of Titus?
Was it just a fanciful family history conclusion? Or did he have some access to secret information stored away in a library in Europe?
Many families have claims such as my uncle’s. It is what fuels family myths that are passed down from generation to generation, morphing and mutating from the original truth, much like Chinese whispers. So, here was the challenge. Did this claim have any truth?
Equipped with the knowledge that historical claims need to be backed up by proof, I began my family history journey using research tools to find the evidence.
We don’t even know if Titus had any descendants. And if he did, who were those descendants? An initial search in my Bible notes reveals that Titus is last mentioned as going east of Greece, into the Balkans. Yes, I have a percentage of Balkan ethnicity. But is that enough?
Next, I discussed this Titus theory of my uncle’s with my significant other, as you do. I find it useful to discuss my research with others and bounce ideas off each other. His first thought was the Roman Emperor Titus.
Now there’s a thought.
So, like a good amateur investigator, I spent some time tracing the noble line of the Orsini Family to which my father’s family is related. With the help of Wikipedia and My Heritage, I went back as far as I could. I am so thankful for Wikipedia, and My Heritage where information is shared and researchers are able to collaborate their findings.
But here I hit another snag. The article on the Orsini family in Wikipedia makes it abundantly clear that the Orsini’s would like to think they can trace their family back to Julius Caesar, but there is no solid proof. As stated in the Wikipedia post on the Orsini Family (note the clause “according to family legend”):
“According to their own family legend, the Orsini are descended from the Julio-Claudian dynasty of ancient Rome.”
It’s not looking good for my uncle’s claims. My digging into the deep past of my dad’s ancestors and connection to Titus has gone cold.
This rabbit hole of fancy, that is, thinking we are related to someone great in our past, got me thinking how in our quest to build up our identity, we often take mighty leaps of faith without much substantiation.
History Research 101 which I picked up from my friend Carol in University and also as a research officer way back in my youth, taught me that good research depends on primary sources.
What are primary sources?
In family history research these are: birth, death, marriage, immigration and census records for a start. Diary entries and letters are also useful primary sources, as they give the reader a rounded view of the individual’s time and place in history. Newspaper articles can be helpful but can be skewed by a journalist’s subjective point of view. Hence, news reports, magazine articles and books may be seen as a secondary source.
That being said, even what appears to be solid records can become rubbery when the ancestor or ancestors, themselves are not truthful.
Another example, again the noble line. Information abounds for these famous ones on the internet. (Bless these historical influencers of the past.) And for this brief foray into history research, they serve a good purpose in the need to dig for information, find the hard facts, and support the genealogical claims. Plus, so much is written about these people, they become real and fleshed-out so to speak. Also, no touchy relatives will get offended if I use these noble people as my example.
A few months after plugging away doing the family history thing of filling in the boxes on my family tree, an interesting match appeared. Charlotte de Luxembourg, a noblewoman from the mid-1400s. The name Luxembourg piqued my interest as it resonated to be a name connected with the French and English royal families. I followed the lead slowly tracing back to Henry I of England and Charlemagne.
Then I returned to the key ancestor upon which this claim to such distinguished ancestry hung. Charlotte de Luxembourg. What was her age? Her age seemed to be in dispute. Furthermore, in some genealogies, she was missing.
I needed to do more research.
Was she just some family history fancy?
I worked out through my internet research that she was most likely Pierre de Luxembourg’s illegitimate daughter. Most likely born before Pierre married Margarete de Savoi. However, according to a genealogist on another family history site called Geni, she could possibly be the daughter of Pierre’s brother, Charles, Bishop of Laon. Either way, to smooth over the family’s disgrace, Charlotte officially became Pierre and Margarete’s daughter; the details of her birthday fudged in the mists of time and covered up so that she remained marriageable.
After what appears to be a shaky start to life in nobility, all ended well for Charlotte. She married an esteemed knight, Phillipe Estavayer. He went up in status and the world was none the wiser of her suspect background. From the records of the knight’s will, which I found in my internet research, Charlotte was well-provided for and loved.
When I first shared these findings with my family, there were those who were sceptical. As a result, I have had to be extra thorough in my research and use every resource and piece of evidence to support my conclusions.
I’m still at the beginning of my family history odyssey. One day I hope the results of this research, my legacy, will be dependable, based on solid facts, and not just a vague myth that boosts the ego but has no substance.
Sources:Ritter, Eug. Mariage de Philippe d’Estavayer avec Charlotte de Louxembourg, en 1484. Revue historique vaudoise, Volume 30 (1922) ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, E-Periodica, https://www.e-periodica.c
More than once fellow writers have asked me, “Where do you get your ideas from?”
Is it from other stories, books, plays or the media such as radio, television, or the internet? Or is it something more?
In the past couple of months I have, as mentioned in other blogs, like Alice in Wonderland, gone down the rabbit-hole of Family History.
What has ancestry or my heritage got to do with writing and publishing, you may ask?
One of the reasons, in my case, is research. A detective novel I am working on requires understanding of genealogy, and the process of DNA analysis. So, down the proverbial rabbit-hole I have gone.
What I’ve discovered so far are the beginnings of a revelation and like a detective novel, the clues/information presents itself like puzzle pieces gathered, then sorted and finally fitted together.
I’ve learnt that like a detective, I must be patient, methodical and have a keen eye for detail. Nothing worse than being sloppy or having sloppiness thrust upon me in the process and getting sidetracked by a red herring.
For example, in the beginning of my family history quest, there was the mystery of the extra “brother” of my great-grandfather. On further investigation and checking of Census data, it turned out the “brother” was a nephew. My great-grandfather from Bavaria, being new to Great Britain and the English language, labelled his brother’s son as a “brother” in the first Census he completed. Ten years later, in the next census, the mistake had been corrected.
Learning what it takes to become a good detective for my Detective Dan series, I’ve discovered that creativity is a part of problem-solving. One lesson learnt was the problem of my youth, tunnel vision. Thirty-five years ago, my auntie handed over the family historian mantel and box. Dutifully, I read the material, joined the local genealogical society, and began my search. I helped a family historian relative with my branch of my paternal grandmother’s family history.
But in the early 2000’s, once grandma’s history was done, dusted, and launched, with the internet in its infancy, continuing with the whole deal got too hard, and was looking like being expensive. So, I turned to the comfort and ease of fiction writing. I eased my guilty conscience of abandoning the project by knowing that my relatives of German descent were doing a much better job than I was in digging up ancestors, building family trees and producing more books. I was happy to receive their hard-earned research usually published in large tomes by local publishers and enjoy what they had uncovered.
Meanwhile, ideas flowed for my Sci-fi novels. The good crusaders fought against evil alien cockroaches. Injustices challenged, good people imprisoned, innocent people burned at the stake as witches, young nobles went missing and evil cockroach aliens wreaked havoc on the universe. Often ideas came in the form of dreams or ideas for a novel sprouted while showering. Worlds were built on these dreams and with the recall of stories of my German ancestors migrating to Australia, the Lost World of the Wends was born.
In late 2023, I delved into Family History once again, this time with more sophisticated computer technology. While plotting my ancestors using all those family history books, I had accumulated, I discovered a noble family line in Lausanne, the French part of Switzerland, stretching back to the 12th Century. Why had I missed this gem when reading the translation in 2010? Tunnel vision. It wasn’t my father’s family name from Bavaria, therefore the family name presented that was of French origin meant nothing to me. I must’ve skipped over that part when reading it.
Further investigation unearthed a pedagogue (a cousin I think from the other branch of this family). However, the pedigree showed me that this line of the family may have been influential in our family’s value for education, not just for the males, but females as well. Plus, it explains my affinity with France.
Now, to answer the question posed at the beginning of this post. Where do my ideas come from? I’ve often wondered if dreams have a genetic component. Sure, family passed stories down from generation to generation, but couldn’t it be also the case that significant emotional events of our ancestors are also passed down through our genetic code? Who we are, our identity, our creativity, is made up of the sum of our predecessors, our ancestors. Could explain why unpublished novel, Mirror World, Adelaide is French…Just a thought.
On that note, I feel as a writer, that with family history, it’s not enough just to fill in the birth, death, and marriage details. The genealogical books that most interest me are the ones which give the context of history, description of the land in which they lived, and a brief resume of each family member’s lives. Photos too are important and make history come alive.
All this research takes time. I’m at the beginning of my quest, searching, digging, and fitting the puzzle pieces together. I’m learning the art of research, once again, as I delve into the rabbit-hole of ancestry. At the same time, I’m learning what makes a good detective for my Detective Dan series which will be under the pen name, Tessa Trudinger. Watch this space.
Indie Scriptorium -- Self Publishing Collective 