Tracing my family history brought an entirely new dimension to my life. With this article I want to warn you about the main risk of digging into your roots. That risk is very real and very acute: there is never enough time. Uncovering the lives of ancestors tends to gather momentum all on its own, and it will very likely pull you into a current that is very hard to swim out of. The reasons are simple.
Every story, every small discovery, every new piece of information, every new photograph brings such a rush that it quickly turns into something you can't help but give in to. At least that's how it was for me.
It all began with the embroideries and a desire to know where they came from. After years away from it, I returned to my grandfather's unfinished autobiography (Aj slnko, aj hrmavica, "Both sun and thunder"), where I didn't learn about the embroideries directly, but I came to know him better, and through his descriptions and stories I gradually grew acquainted with the ancestors who came before him. I realised what a privilege it is that this branch of the family left us such a thoroughly mapped record of the whole lineage. Beyond the autobiography, I also came across his genealogical work Šenšelovský rod (The Šenšel Lineage) and a publication called Pevný buď (Be Steadfast), about the life and work of his father, my great-great-grandfather Ľudovít Šenšel.
Gradually the connections began forming in my mind, who was tied to whom, where and when, and I started asking questions at home. I already knew my parents' memories fairly well, so I wanted to reach further. I'm not naturally an extrovert and I usually shy away from making the first move, but suddenly I had a goal that was bigger than all my hang-ups, and reaching out to people simply happened by itself. Thanks to this search, over the course of a few months I came to know so many wonderful people, both within the family and people connected with folklore and history, and the response I received exceeded all my expectations. Every single one of them was willing to share what they knew, or to point me in the right direction.
The yearbooks of Živena also found their way into my hands, and I read them in an entirely different way than I would have a few years ago. I moved through their pages through the eyes of my ancestors, and the individual pieces in Živena gave the whole picture of them, and of the era they lived in, a depth and context I hadn't had before.
Thoughts of a world a hundred years gone now travel with me every day. For years I've had at home a few old pieces of ceramics, embroidered doilies and tablecloths, old editions of books, and an antique sewing machine. These things had until now been mostly beautiful objects to me. Now I wonder who embroidered the little doily I keep on my coffee table, which of the women in my family sewed dresses on this very machine, how many Šenšel visitors drank coffee from the beautiful cups I love so dearly, whose fingers turned the pages of the same old book I'm holding in my hands today.
I realised that knowing my ancestors connects me to them. Even though our lives could not have crossed, we carry so much of what they left behind: the character traits, the gifts, the failings that so often have their roots somewhere far back. Personally, I've started to be kinder to myself because of all this. Knowing that before me there were remarkable people who were not perfectly flawless, and that in the case of my grandfather and great-grandfather, they were not afraid to admit their own weaknesses, makes me gentler with myself and fills me with a deep pride in where I come from. I've found new influencers for my life in them. The real kind, the ones I actually want to be shaped by.
I feel the same when reading Živena. Women who fought with love, not for themselves or their own individual gain, but for the rights and better standing of all women in society. They gave voice to respect for women and recognition of all their roles in everyday life, not as a complaint, but as a plain truth. That truth from a hundred years ago is, sadly, still familiar today. I admire their courage, their humility, and their selflessness. For me, it is a call to return to such models, because in today's glut of self-focus it is easy for all of us to lose our way.