I am currently involved in two researches, no actually three when you think about the thesis dissertation I am working to complete and graduate University this December.
The first research was suggested by a good friend, a historian, and in in the line of that book Mary pointed me to ( The Darkening Age). If you have read that book, you know the extent to which the Christians destroyed artifacts of the old religions.
In the same line, I would want to find out
- how far did mission Christianity try to capture or delete previously sacred landscapes in Kenya?
- how did my/our forefathers respond to such desecration of religious sites and knowledge?
I am calling for help on this from the universe 🙂
My second area of research isn’t informed by the first one but is an idle curiosity. I am researching on my family tree. I have information up to my grandfather 4 times removed. I also have a bit of history on the eponymous father of the clan Onyango son of Ogiri and I want to trace the line both forwards from him to me and backwards to any of the early Luo migrations into Central Nyanza.
Here is where you come in. If anyone from Asembo Kanyikela reads this and has information that would help me in reconstructing this tree, backwards especially, say something in the comments or reach me on the contacts page. Help yours truly satisfy this idle curiosity.
Random thoughts 
Good luck with your studies and your thesis.
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Thank you mate. The thesis is almost done and when it is eventually accepted, I share a link here
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I’m looking forward to it.
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Hopefully by Dec
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I know we only go back a few years, but you can throw me into your family tree. Have you tried ancestry.com? They do have a free trial. If you can plug in your four generations it will probably link you up with others who have done the same. If you are Mormon or know one, Family Search™️ is free with your LDS member number. Maybe Eilene would be a good one to ask. She’s a genealogist and historian
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None of my relatives is a
moronMormon. Let me try and see if anyone I know has tried ancestry.com but I think likely not.LikeLiked by 2 people
Mormon churches also have genealogy centers that are very friendly to help. A non-member account is called a FamilySearch Account and can be created at http://www.FamilySearch.org. After creating an account they need to call FamilySearch Support and ask for access to new.FamilySearch.org AND FamilySearch Family Tree that will give them full access to ALL NON-Sacred information on our sites.
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I have checked out ancestry.com and deleted my profile 5 minutes later. They can’t help me.
I will visit the Mormons and see what they have.
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Good luck in your discoveries, Mak. I admire your tenacity and perseverance on such things.
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Thanks.
Knowledge for its own sake is what I live for
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I, for one, would be very interested to see your final reports on all three subjects.
We Zande’s are lucky. We stayed in one town (the town they founded) right up until after WW1, when some families (my line) left. The first recorded evidence of that town (a sort of deed saying “we own this”) is from 1011 CE.
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Wow!
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Cool, huh? This is the town, Auronzo di Cadore. Been there many times. It’s started to become quite popular, but for ages the main road north went to Cortina, which was the ‘wealthy’ ski resort town, and hardly anyone took the smaller road to Auronzo.
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Very cool and very beautiful! That’s a long period of time to trace your ancestry back to. You must be proud.
Both my parents’ families are from the same small town of Montallegro, Sicily; so, I guess I could trace back my ancestry pretty far too if the records are still available. My mom and brother told me that the houses are built from light-colored stone, and there are lots of orchards and gardens around which The Godfather movies depict very well.
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I bet you could, as far back, if not further. Have you been back for a look-see?
And Auronzo is pretty today, but it was a fairly wretched place for most of its existence. Like I said, the road was not well travelled. The people and money went elsewhere. This is a pic from the turn of the century. Pretty hard going. And after WW1 some of the Zande line (there are twenty-three lines) had had enough and took off.
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No, the one time I traveled to Europe we didn’t make it to Italy unfortunately.
Yeah, Auronzo looked ragged back then. From my history studies, I recall the Veneto region of Italy was on the battlefront between Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces during WWI. I’m not sure how your town was impacted, but it probably was to some degree.
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Not directly. It was Italy then, had been Austria earlier. All the lads fought, though. They were the mountain forces.
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23 lines.
Man, go and claim that city
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The foundation name is Zandegiacomo, then the suffixed names are attached when the blood line became sufficiently diluted to allow marriage (with no genetic messes). We’re Zandegiacomo Della Morte (from the dead). It was quite clever. Neptune only knows who figured the system out, but since the first Zandegiacomo there have now been 23 times a new suffix could be added, creating a new family who could marry xyz Zandegiacomos, but not abc Zandegiacomos. Necessary, I guess, living isolated in a small area with very little new blood coming in.
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This is so interesting!
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I want to hear yours. Why did they move north from Sudan?
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Family disagreement, first and foremost. Strife with neighbours & famine
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Good enough reason to travel. My wife’s father’s family fled Hungary after the brothers murdered a German soldier in WW2. “We better get out of here… Pack your bags everyone! We’re going to Brazil”
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It’s like back then, mediation wasn’t known. Small disagreement and a fellow packs
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This is picturesque!
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Broader pic. The larger part of the town in the far of the pic is Vila Grande, which is the Zande part (Zandegiacomo, to be exact), and the bit closer to the bottom is Vila Picola, which was dominated by some other family whose name I can’t remember.
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Stunning! The topography looks like flooding could be a problem.
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You know, I’ve never heard of it happening. It’s close to the top of the catchment up there, so I guess the melt water doesn’t come in the quantities to flood. Interesting question, though. I’ll have to ask my dad if he’s ever heard of it happening.
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Man, go and claim the city!
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We still do have a slice of it. I went a lot when I was a kid.
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Ah, so you can go claim some portion of the city and establish your small business
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I wish. Sadly no. Apart from a flat in the town, what’s left now is just some land in the mountains, useful only for logging.
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Mountains are great for cottages for tourists
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Steeeeeep.
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Even better! Once you solve the problem of moving material.
By the way how do you build? With stones or timber
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Up there? The oldest buildings are wood (plenty of trees for material). All the newer structures are plastered brick. Thick walls.
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In our cities, it is a mixture of stone walling, concrete blocks or bricks. In rural areas it is mad and wattle construction. Timber is not so common as we don’t have a lot of it
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I guess stone must be used. It’s the Dolomites, after all. Plenty of the stuff just lying around. The walls are plastered white, so it’s hard to tell, and I can’t recall ever asking.
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Interesting thing is that I have a history of the Luo going back generations to their immigration from Sudan but I don’t have the immediate history. So I am also interested in what I will find.
You have a long history. I hope it’s a line to be proud of 😁
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Watch sheep in the low valley through winter, watch sheep in the high mountain pastures through summer. Repeat… for centuries 🙂
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don’t know much about my ancestry other than my real last name means blade polisher in German/Austrian. I’m very curious about what you find out about the religion stuff.
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I hope what I find about religion will be worth writing about
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Good luck in ALL your research and that is terrific news about your postgraduate degree in December. I strongly advise you to NOT waste time on ancestry.com or on the mormon folks. They really don’t have much to offer those outside this country unless one is of western European origin. Naked hugs! 🙂
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I envy you and anyone who can search their roots. I was adopted as a baby and was “in the dark” most of my life. About 8-10 years ago, I was fortunate enough to come across someone who had access to records not available to the general public and he was able to fill in some blanks. Then, after my adoptive mother died, I found information in a desk drawer from the adoption agency and learned the names of my birth mother and father. I also found out I’m half-Mexican and half-German. Quite a combination, huh?
Anyway, I admire your tenacity in your studies. Congrats on obtaining that degree!
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That’s quite a combination, Nan. I think it felt good to answer some of those gaps.
Thanks Nan. The degree has been quite some work & the end is near.
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[…] In this post I said I wanted to draw my family tree. I have progressed a little and gotten information that I would like to share. I will continue to update as and when I know more. […]
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