Thursday, February 18, 2010

Family history

I'm researching Himself's distant family on The MIL's side. They have a really fascinating history.

Some time in 1862, a man jumped ship with his friend. The boat they were on was from the US, they didn't fancy spending any more time on it so they jumped overboard and swam into a new chapter in their family history.

After some weeks of travelling through the Cape Peninsula, Himself's great great (great?) grandfather and his shipmate found themselves on one side of Langebaan Lagoon. Himself's distant grandfather decided to row across, he wanted to see what was on the other side. There, he found himself a wife and a piece of earth to call his own. Five generations later, that piece of earth is now part of the West Coast National Park and his descendents have scattered to the far corners of the earth, with one great great great grandchild finding herself back on his home soil, the family having come full circle.

Now if only he hadn't thrown all correspondence with his family in the US away, we'd have known where he was born and who his brothers and sisters were.

1 comment:

Ei said...

You know we have a shipping company locally that has the same name as your surname. I've been meaning to mention it to you for sometime. There's a driver who lives a few blocks from me and I see his van all the time. Makes me think of you every time.