von Fircks

Blogs which describe people or events related to my paternal line.

Were they the best days of his life?

As the saying goes, school days are the best days  of our lives – or are they? I tend to think the days we spend in school are not memorable for the education we receive, but for the friendships we make and the lack of responsibility we have. It is

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How families are like trees – a metaphor still used today

I love family trees. One can gather so much information from them if they have been done correctly. And if there are blanks, that just means there is so much more to research and discover – so many opportunities to disappear down multitudes of rabbit holes. Bliss! “Like a tree,

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New Jersey childhood holidays by the water

The only family holidays I remember all took place before I began school. After that, I cannot remember going on any holidays as a family. Looking back through old photos it seems New Jersey was the place my parents preferred for holidays. Although I have no idea where the main

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Knowing different languages helped him in later life

As I have mentioned before, my father learnt Latvian, English, German and French at high school and also knew a smattering of Russian. As a Baltic-German who did his schooling in Latvia, it is not a great leap to presume he spoke German at home and Latvian within the wider

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He said he did not love her, but his notes prove otherwise

A couple of years before he died, my father told me that my parent’s marriage was “never a love match”. I found his statement difficult to believe because I knew my mother loved him very much. But I had no way of asking her, she had died several years before

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