In search of my roots

A fascination with ancestry

As long as I can remember, I have been interested in my ancestry. Who were the people before me? Where did they come from? And how did their lives influence my own? Those questions became even more intriguing because my family ties extend far beyond the borders of the Netherlands. Not only within our own country, but also towards Hungary and Slovakia.

That curiosity led me quite early on to genealogy: researching the family tree. Looking back, that was the beginning of a hobby that has never let go of me.

The first discovery online

The first time I found a part of my family tree online was more than twenty years ago now. I typed my own name into Google and ended up on a website run by an American. To my surprise, there was a section of my family history, complete with old photographs of my grandparents.

That moment was magical. Photos in which I partly recognised faces, but not from our own family albums—rather from those of someone on the other side of the world. Someone who was related to my family through a side branch. His information was not complete, and that was something my father and I could help with. From that moment on, I knew: this is something I want to explore myself, but then focused on my own branch of the family.

Getting started with genealogy

In the years that followed, I increasingly started researching things myself. The Dutch part of my family tree turned out to be relatively easy to reconstruct. A huge amount of information is available online, from birth certificates to population registers. Websites such as AlleFriezen, WieWasWie and OpenArchieven proved indispensable.

But once you cross the border, things become much more challenging. For the Hungarian and Slovak part of my family, I have to work with old books and registers. Often handwritten, in a foreign language, and sometimes difficult to read. That is exactly where the real challenge of genealogical research lies.

Family in Hungary and a missing link

The good fortune I have is that I still know part of my family in Hungary. They can help me with stories and context. But not everyone knows everything, and some pieces of the puzzle remained missing.

There was one person who might know much more. Someone I had not seen or spoken to since the early 1980s. What I did know was that he spoke English and would probably be able to help me further. Only… how do you find someone after so many years?

Searching with modern tools

I started by searching via search engines and later also used ChatGPT to search more intelligently. Time and again I came across the same name, but I was never completely sure. In genealogical research, you always have to take into account people with the same name: the same name does not automatically mean the same person.

Making contact proved difficult. No email address, no phone number. There were references to organisations he had worked for, though. Attempts to reach him via secretariats repeatedly ran into the familiar bureaucratic wall.

I also found the name on Facebook. With the help of a message written in Hungarian, I made an attempt to reach him. And then… silence.

Patience is rewarded

For three months, there was no response. Until suddenly a message came in. Yes! It was indeed the person I was looking for. That moment felt like a huge breakthrough.

By now, a few months have passed. There has been a lot of contact, photos have been exchanged, and memories shared. Pieces of family history that had been missing for years suddenly fell into place.

Genealogy connects

What this experience has shown me once again is that genealogy is much more than collecting names and dates. It connects people, across borders and generations. Old photographs gain a story, and stories gain faces.

For me, this research is therefore far from finished. On the contrary: every discovery only makes the curiosity grow. And who knows what surprises might still be waiting somewhere in an old register or a faded photograph.