A letter to Rick Steves and his Czech colleague

                        

Search for Living Relatives

 

Dear Rick Steves and Honza Vihan,

 

In October of 2007 we enjoyed your "Best of Prague" tour with Honza Vihan. The delightful tour clearly reflected your interests, originality and excellence.  Your narrative was compelling. Thank you for being such a knowledgeable, interesting, and attentive guide for us. 

 

Following the tour, we extended our visit to the Czech Republic to pursue our genealogy quest. We had completed our family tree back two generations and were in hopes of developing Czech links to our living relatives.

 

As a member of the Czech Genealogical Society of Chicago, we receive a monthly bulletin. Good fortune it was to follow-up on an advertisement placed by Rev. Jan, genealogy researcher, interpreter, and guide who resides in the Czech Republic. We contacted Rev. Jan and asked him for assistance.

 

Rev. Jan's research identified potential relatives living in Ceske Budejovice, Putimov, Sobeslav and Plesna. Following his phone calls and letters introducing us, organizing our meetings, we traveled and met strangers who might be family members. Turns out they are! We are grateful to Rev. Jan for without his introductions and preparation our quest would not have been possible, much less successful.

 

We are pleased to send you both our personal recommendation:

 

       Rev. Jan is a man of fine character.  His qualities including sincerity, trust, warmth and genuine interest led us through to a meaningful experience.  He brought focus and direction for us all and showed enthusiasm in the development of each personal history. He escorted us for 2 days to the several locations and provided ongoing Czech history and current cultural expectations.

 

       As an interpreter, Rev. Jan is talented.  He very professionally communicated with our relatives bridging a language and trust barrier with great skill. There was so little delay between history teller and listener translating from Czech to English, English to Czech that an amazing flow of understanding happened and we created "Family Trees" spontaneously. We are currently continuing our communications with them and plan to return to the Czech Republic as they plan to visit us in the US.

 

Thank you all.

 

    Yours Truly,

                                 

                                  Tenny and Jo Stannard

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have more questions?

Do you want to get in touch with Tenny and Jo?

Let us know, we will be glad to give you their contact info.