In Search of Ancient Slovenian Ancestors

Later this week our oldest, daughter Ann, and youngest, son Patrick, embark on a journey worthy of “In Search of…” They fly to Venice (Italy, not California) and thence to Slovenia to seek out ancestral villages. You see, Kathy is 100% Slovenian. I didn’t know what that was until I met her. Her grandparents emigrated from Slovenia in 1900 and settled in Minnesota. Ann and Patrick will follow their backtrail, looking for the village of Hrovaca which has something to do with the House of Dragov. Sounds a little like a scary movie. I told them to pack some extra consonants for the trip—or maybe they’ll really need to buy a vowel or two.

Thanks to a relative out in California who keeps track of such things, they have the names of relatives born back in 1782 and 1784 and 1846 (Jacob and Agnes and Anton). They probably won’t run into any of Jacob’s contemporaries, which is just as well, but having their names may help them in their search.

Look for a report on their exploits in Ann’s blog Travels with Grandma.

My brother tracks our family history and knows more about it than I do. I haven’t done any serious exploration yet, but when we get back to Ireland, I’d like to give it a try. When we were there a couple of years ago, I just enjoyed knowing that I was at least in the same country that my ancestors had come from. The people kind of looked like me. That was nice.

I am just too tired now to say much more. It was a busy weekend up at church with an all day retreat on Saturday for all the various ministries, and then a pot luck dinner with the Social Justice group today. The retreat was very enjoyable and relaxing. We just talked about the roots of service and how it works. I’ll have to say more later. The dinner was fun as we kind of rewarded ourselves with some fun and food.

All the while there was a work project that took up all my time this weekend when I wasn’t up at church. Next week is our Spring Career Fair, and that’s the one that I am responsible for. We have 163 companies coming on Friday, and one of the last pieces of the project was laying out the floor of the gym where the Fair will be held. I had to figure out where each company would be located on the floor. There are all sorts of variables to take into account like: the industry they are in, the majors they were looking for, who their competitors are, when they registered, and their relationship to our office. Not that anyone else would care, but if you want to see it, it’s all right here for your viewing pleasure. If you’re in Cleveland on March 3, come on over.

So that’s why I haven’t been blogging these past few days.

Oh—one more thing. Did anyone see that Best of Monty Python on PBS last week? I taped it and watched some of it. Their sports spoofs were terrific, like: the 1500m for people with no sense of direction, the marathon for the incontinent, the 100m for the deaf. I told Ben in our office about the deaf thing—he’s hearing impaired himself—and he told me how in high school when he was in a swim meet, the starter failed to give a hand signal as well as fire the gun, so he didn’t know when to take off. Everyone else dove in and he was still standing there. Finally he dove in and he said he was so mad he only breathed once the whole fifty yards down and fifty yards back and he wound up taking second place! The whole place erupted in a standing ovation. Pretty cool. His brother charged out of the stands and berated the starter, demanding another race, but Ben said no thanks—he was exhausted.

So am I. Good night.