My Ancestors

Letters, diaries and documents from many centuries in the past provided the details for this enthralling read, but it is no ordinary collection of dry-as-dust facts. It is a chronicle stretching back into the Middle Ages, the history of a fascinating, influential and many-branched family with exciting life-stories to relate. The authors grandfather was the artist Johann Hinrich Geerken, and his aunt was housekeeper to Albert Einstein. This richly illustrated volume tells the tales of farmers and inventors, artists and artisans, but also of courageous women who had to see their families through difficult times alone. Among the ancestors described are the famous master tower-clock maker Johann Michael Mannhardt, whose clocks continue to tell the correct time, and Wilhelm Emmanuel Johann Mannhardt, an academic and Mennonite whose works are still published today. The book takes us to Meiji-period Japan, where Carl August Schenk the scientist taught at the University of Tokyo and is still honoured as the father of Japanese mineralogy, to Indonesia where the author lived and worked for many years, and on to Australia, America and Greece, where many of the family live today. Many interesting historical anecdotes and illustrations make the book well worth reading – not just for the family. It is a document of modern and contemporary history.