Unfortunately, even our family trees are artefacts demonstrating that for centuries, even until most recent times, History was actually a “His Story” and the women, even our own grandmas, were not able to interweave their stories in the history narrative and in the family narratives. “Her story” is the missing part of the global History.
While designing my family tree I faced tremendous difficulties in discovering the stories of my female predecessors. It was very easy to get information about my grandpas, many segments of their lives were well documented and the family lore romanticized their endeavors and blew their human dimensions way out of proportion. But evidence about the grandmas trickled down drop by drop. Fortunately, I was able to dig out many details and to discover that I come from a long line of brave and courageous women, who defied the chaos around them, making sure that the survival of their families is guaranteed even when their life partners were far away for year, without any communication, and the world was turned upside down because of wars, uprisings, and revolutions. There is also a very sad side to their lives because they were not able to develop their talents, obtain education, get a job or even publicly voice their concern because of the restraints of the patriarchal societies of the past.
Nowadays, while my generation is making sure that the last remnants of the patriarchy are dealt away with forever, it would be very beneficial for the future historians to rediscover the “Her Story” of our grandmas and to interlace this missing part of the global narrative in the history.
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