It wouldn’t surprise me that quite a few people would probably conclude I have gone crazy when they read the above statement. But believe it or not, the statement could very well be true. It seems that the family on my mother’s side goes back all the way to early medieval times, in fact to around 850AD.
I can hear people think, ‘how on earth did she find that out?’ and ‘no way can she ever proof that…’
Well, about a year ago, when I started digging into my own family tree, I came across a little booklet that my mother’s cousin had written about a man named Radbod. This Radbod was bishop of Utrecht from 899-917 and the cousin found some compelling evidence to support his theory, that Radbod was one of the earliest ancestors on my mother’s maternal side of the family.
Absolutely intrigued I decided to find out as much as I could about Radbod, but I didn’t get very far. For one I was very busy writing a book, which absorbed all my energy and secondly there just wasn’t much information to find about this guy. Okay, he had become a saint about 50 years after his death, but people had never really flocked to his shrine as they did with other saints. Also just a few manuscripts from the time in which he lived had actually survived the ages.
Around Christmas, my book was finished and it was time to start a new project. I began rooting through the little pile of information I had so far been able to collect about Radbod. I soon realised that finding my ancestor was going to be a quest – or as my Oxford English Dictionary described it a ‘long and arduous journey in search of something’.
My quest starts today with this first blog post. Will I ever be able to proof that Radbod’s blood runs through my veins? Probably not. At the moment it’s not the proof that I am interested in. At the moment I am interested in the journey. The quest that will very likely take me through five European countries and that will give me more than enough to write about.
Please join me in my quest to find out where it all began.
Love the beginning of your journey. How exciting to have a destination in mind instead of a blank sheet of paper. I will look forward to following your journey.
Frances