Last year my daughter received an email from someone saying they were looking for our family, after contacting me and my son we decided it was a spam message.  The email gave information of family names and relationships – nothing really that could not have been obtained from Ancestry, Find My Past or other on-line resources.  But these emails kept coming from the Finnish researcher.   If you Google Sklinar you only come up with a few people, my daughter, my son, a couple in the USA and me. Eventually, after numerous emails my daughter replied as by now some of the information contained details of non-UK family – this information I confirmed.  The email was sent and a reply received.  It all turned out that the researcher was working for a Russian family history programme ‘Zhdi Menya’ and that my husband mums family were looking for us – cousins.  For years I had felt guilty when working on my very large family tree as my husband’s line only went back as far as his grandparents. So, my cousin-in-laws are looking for us.  Where do they live ?  Slonim in Belarusia.  You may have heard Natasha Kaplinsky, UK newsreader, featured in primetime celebrity history show ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and discovered her family were from Slonim, Belarus. They hid in the woods with the Bielski brothers, remember the film ‘Defiance’ which starred Daniel Craig and Jamie Bell. The TV company wanted us to go to Minsk with about 2 weeks notice – not practical, work and commitments were getting in the way and my daughter was about to cycle around Mt kilimanjaro for Macmillan Cancer Research.  A filming in London was arranged.  We were supposed to meet Igor our cameraman in Westminster Tube Station, but what did he look like.  We presumed someone with a lot of camera equipment.  After various text messages and phone calls the decision was taken to meet on the opposite bank of the Thames to the Houses of Parliament. It was a nice day and a very iconic background, something people from all corners of the world would recognise – Parliament and Big Ben.

We were filmed in the small gardens outside St Thomas’s Hospital,  Igor had a list of questions and the questions were aimed at either Kim or myself.  It was a nice day and it didn’t seem we were talking to a camera but to a friend.  About an hour later filming was done and we all headed out of the garden, just as the rain started to pour down.  We headed for a coffee and asked our cameraman to join us, sadly he had other commitments.

So, about 50 minutes of filming was cut down to about 3minutes and we start about the 12 minute mark. The programme ‘Zhdi Menya’.

Since the programme aired there has been quite a bit of emailing going on but email and computer problems, on their side,lately have slowed this down.  We don’t speak Russian and my cousin in laws don’t speak English therefore, google translator has been getting a lot of use along with my daughters friends who have a smattering of the language.

Stop Press :- By the time I post this we will be on our way to Minsk  followed by Slonim, and as they say, treading in my mother in laws steps.  We will be seeing her homeland as she never saw it and visiting places that even google cannot find…… but what an adventure and what a tale we will have to tell on our return

See you when I get back !!