For years I was drifting along life's winding river, with no real plan or direction where I was going to end up?

Sometimes I washed up on a nice sandy beach other times a gritty mudbank. Even during those muddy times I really had the distinct feeling, someone was watching over me? They would guide me away from mud banks and back to the nice sunny sandy beaches.

I mention this because, although I know mum and dad and our family friends have long passed away, I do hear them speak to me sometimes? I assume it's just my memory of their voices when I am thinking of them but they do seem to help me.

Many times I asked a question, for example how to fix something on my banger cars, or help with resolving a work problem?

I know scientists believe, if you go to bed with a problem to solve, the mind continues to process over night and the following morning you wake up with the answer!

This might be true and I have experienced that but it doesn't expain trying to find a lost spanner in the garage left 6 months ago, no clue where I put it! I resort to asking mum or dad to help me find it. I have no idea how but without fail they have never let me down yet and those lost items are found again! They don't talk to me I just get a feeling I have to look in a particular location? Explain that one boffins!

That must sound a bit potty but statistically it has happened more times than you would expect.

With this in mind, one day I am casually looking for something online then by chance I am faced with the realisation of something far greater and humbling just by accident. A lifetime of puzzle pieces or even remnants of memory suddenly all make sense litterally over night!

So what was this great awakening?

I came across a Polish Geneology website and it opened up a very large chapter of my family history I never knew.

Looking for my parents and grand-parents names and in no time at all I actually found them, their siblings and host of other things!

Many hours searching into the night and desperately trying to put the pieces together I came to the conclusion there is an entire section of Poland, effectively where both sets of parents came from and lived, right from the early 1800s!

I am on 7 generations so far and still going strong. I probably have enough cousins to start my own country!

A lot of photos on my website suddenly came to life. I identified lots of people and taken educated guesses about others.

I thought am I getting old because like my dad I too always liked history, but geneology was never really my thing, especially since the only real family I had were mum and dad here in the UK and that is all that I knew and was important to me.

My current research has led me to one final conclusion.

After 200 years I am the last Krawczyk in this particular blood line.

Technically my daughter Ania is the last true Krawczyk! No pressure I will be passing the torch to her.

At the start of this blog I mentioned I was being helped/guided along in my life.

Knowing so much more about my parents families from both sides, I feel both mum and dad were also being helped in some way?

They both went through hell, sacrificed so much more than anybody will ever know but still managed to live a nice life, bring me up in-spite of everything. We were a happy, strong family unit and of course I am eternally greatful to them for everything.

So what next?

The pilgrimage to Poland I always promised myself but never did?

The last time I visited Poland I was 11 years old.

Worthy of a TV documentary I expect! The boy in the bubble, time travelling back to my childhood memories.

With the advent of google and streetview I have even managed to remember and track down specific locations when I was 6 years old! Maybe my memory isn't that bad after all? But read the toilet stories blog, those events left a mark on me!

I have even tracked down where some of my grand parents are buried or at least the area they might be, either way I will find and pay respect to them.

So fingers crossed I can make that trip next year? Camera gear at the ready a lot of places to visit and experience today's Poland as well as the past.