Things I am Curious About

 The weekly prompt from @AmyJohnsonCrow and #52Ancestors in 52 Weeks is "Curious".  I don't think you get into family history research without being curious!  

I want to know so much about my Czech Moravian ancestors - what was their life like?  

Why did they decide to come across an ocean to America?  

What did they hope to find, do, experience here?  

What were their dreams, hopes, and goals?  

Did they make their dreams come true? 

I'd love to see where they lived one day, as it is likely that the area is not changed very much due to communism.  I would love to see the cemeteries, churches, schools they went to. I would especially love to find distant cousins who may still live there!  

I wonder if they ever thought of their descendants - what we would be like?  

If we would forget the language (we have)?

If we would continue traditions (we have not)?

I wonder what they would tell us to do, things that would help us, continue our Czech-ness, our Moravian-ness?  

Curiosity keeps me digging for more roots. 

"Foundations"

There is a yearly challenge by Amy Johnson Crowe to write about something related to family history each week.  I have signed up to do it every year for 3-4 years and I have never written anything.  I do enjoy reading what others have written.  I decided to give it a try this year! 

The first prompt is "Foundations".  Other than a few hymns that pop up in my mind when I think of that word, I think of foundation as the earliest ancestor I know.  I have written a post about that ancestor, John (Jon) Frantisek Holy, as well as some of the Marek ancestors that go much farther back. 

I want to go back to Jiri, or George as he was called after coming to America.  He really is my foundation person that I know with solid evidence he was my great-great grandfather.  It is one thing to see things on paper about him, but when I look at him in this photo, one of the only ones we have, he really seems to come alive to me. He was so tall for a Czech-Moravian! and his sweet wife Francis Drgac Holy was so cute and little!  I just love them so much even though I have never met them.  

This is a photo of them on their porch in Crosby, Texas where they lived much of their married life.  I still live in Crosby as well as my parents, and my grandparents and great grandparents did as well.  Our town has changed, but this foundation ancestor was a big part of it's up and coming as a community.  He had a farm, was a founder and trustee of the Crosby State Bank, and was part of the community's business dealings.  With 11 children, they have hundreds of decedents who still remain in the Crosby area. Most of whom I do not even know.  So this is my "Foundation" as an American, as a pillar of our community, and as a wonderful looking man that I hope to meet and talk to in Heaven one day.