Tracing My Ancestors

How far up the family tree can you trace your ancestors?

I did a little sniffing several years ago and came up with some interesting answers. You know how things are in the villages in those days -- a marriage usually meant the merging of two families and suddenly you ended up with a handful of instant uncles, aunts and the assorted cousins. I was curious about who came before my paternal grandfather and how are they connected to all these truckloads of relatives far and near.

The elders, may God bless their souls, who explained to me the connection between this relative to that relative are long gone now.I had to do a lot of filtering of all that extended family connections to come up with only those branching out from the same family tree. But if I hadn't asked, these elders would've taken all that information with them.

Here's the list of my ancestors, from my father up: Othman >> Hussain >> Ali >> Musa. For most people that's quite a lot -- some people only know up to their grandfather but I managed to get two rungs up to my great great grandfather, including the names of all the spouses and offsprings of each fore-father.

MUSA and his wife, Salimah, had seven children -- Jusoh, Dahaman, Abu Bakar, ALI, Ibrahim, Tossa and Mek Nah. I got most of my information from my grandaunt, Sepiah, daughter of Mek Nah. She has passed on now, may God bless her kind soul, but she was probably my oldest living realtive at the time.

My great grandfather Ali and his wife, Kecik, had three children -- HUSSAIN, Abu Bakar and Khatijah. My grandfather, Hussain, had four wives, i.e. Cik Nah, Sarah, Thariah and Maliah. Sarah and Thariah had no children, Maliah had one but the first wife bore him four children -- Shuib, OTHMAN, Zainol and Abdul Muthalib.

On to Othman, my father who first married Kholijah and had a daughter, Hasnah. Then he married my mom, Zabedah and they had two sons -- my brother Emran and yours truly here. Mom had two daughters, Fatimah and Azizah from her previous marriage before marrying my father. She remarried after my father passed away and has another two children, Bazli and Rusni. Ours is quite a mixed bag of marbles with different colours and sizes.

I have also managed to find four other generations beyond my great great grandfather through "other" means but that's another story meant for my next posting. In the meantime, browse the list and see if you can find anyone familiar. For all we know, we could be related!

Phew, That was Close!

This blog would probably never see another update, had I made a wrong move this morning.

I have been staying up late this week trying to restore and old table, working into the wee hours of the morning. I finally finished the job yesterday and the table, which was previously abandoned under the rambutan tree, now sits proudly in the dining room in all its redwood lacquered glory.

Late this morning as usual, after a glass of water and a cigarette, I walked to the toilet just outside the kitchen to answer nature's call. As I opened the toilet door I heard a hissing sound coming from the roof. I looked up and saw a huge cobra on the rafters all poised and ready to strike, had I moved an inch forward.

There was a moment of silence with me frozen in my tracks. It is not everyday that you have a five-foot cobra staring in your face, and with you only wrapped in your towel at that! I jumped back shouting and I had never been so scared in my life. As the snake slowly slithered the other way, whatever that was trying to get out from my bowels also recoiled back into hiding.

I then rushed back into the house to get my grandfather's bamboo walking stick. The black snake was still on the rafters, and I managed to hit it once before it escaped into the bushes nearby.

After that close brush with the reptile, I cancelled my appointment with Mother Nature, put on some clothes and went to the village coffee-shop for a drink and some breakfast. I don't know what for; perhaps to calm down the nerves or maybe to celebrate my long life?

It has been nearly 20 hours, and I still don't feel like going to the loo.