Research finds

The library is still open limited hours, and weekdays only. We have been told to call in sick if we have the slightest of colds or soar throats. Still nothing like that for me so I work almost like normal. The past few weeks I have had desk duty a lot and this will probably continue. We still have visitors, particularly for the special collections reading room. Many people whose jobs have closed down are now engaging in personal projects. We have many visitors who are studying old magazines, newspapers and archive material right now. The number of requests is down but we are certainly not idle.

The past two weekends I have done some spring cleaning. I cleaned the interiors of my car, moved items to the attic storage and got recycled items to the bins. I have also done some cooking, filing of documents and dusting. Last weekend I helped clearing out items to charity at a friend's place.

The research is continuing, of course. One of my colleagues talked about her grandfather, whose mother left him and moved to Denmark in 1911. I have done some research in Danish records but not that much. I looked for information and found quite a lot. It turns out that this woman died in 1970, without ever having contacted her family back in Sweden. Remarkable.

In my own research I have found the Helsdingen ancestors. They seem to have led interesting lives. They were Dutch from the beginning but they lived in South Africa. They were a part of a Dutch community living right at the Cape of Good Hope. One member of this family lived in Copenhagen and sailed for the Danish East India Company. His father and several siblings worked for the Dutch East India Company. My ancestor died on one of the voyages to Asia. It said in an old newspaper that he died 1827 in Bengal, present-day Bangladesh. This is just amazing. I have never known about this before, the only thing I knew was the surname, that's it.

Today there was a small celebration at work for my upcoming birthday. My colleagues gave me a large bouquet of flowers and then asked for my account number. I wondered about this but they had decided to give me money, suggesting I should use it on a subscription for a genealogy database. My colleagues know me quite well, it seems.