"If you don't know where you're coming from, you don't know where you're going."

In this journey called life-knowing one's roots is as important as the day one is born. To borrow this rastafarian quote- "The search for one's roots is an acknowledgement of the wealth of one's heritage, a due respect and gratitude to those who have gone before, and a rediscovering of what may have been lost."


A few years ago, my sister began fervently tracing and documenting our family's ancesteral roots on our maternal side. There just seemed to be more by way of information/facts on my mother's side than my father's. Though it was a tedious process, my sister has done an incredible job and it has taken her far and wide. It has also been a long and interesting journey as both my grandparents have melanau and british ancestry dating back to the Brooke rule in Sarawak. With our own children now grown up and asking questions it is inevitable that someone provided them with some answers.

Since my sister had that part of the family history more or less covered(this incredible woman even has a book in the works), I thought I'd try to do justice to my dad's side by just tracing/contacting immediate and known family members first. Eventhough my dad was born in Ipoh and brought up in Kuala Lumpur his family ancestry goes all the way back to Sri Lanka. Due to my father's untimely death, my siblings and I were brought up in Sarawak by my mum and her parents. Thus, we were geographically cut-off from my father's side of the family throughout our growing years. It was only until later in life that we were able to meet up with most of them. I know that my paternal grandfather was of Sinhalese/Dutch descent and my grandmother was of Irish/Tamil descent. Never had the chance to get to know my granddad as he died in the 1950's but had the chance to share hugs and kisses and stories with my grandma on many occasions when she was alive. She was one person who wherever she lived, whether it was Singapore or Australia, never failed to write us letters. She also never forgot any of our bithdays and there were five of us, mind you! I can still recall the joy I felt upon receiving birthday cards/letters from a grandmother I'd never met.

These couple of years have been a blessed and fruitful journey in that my children have met an uncle ( my dad's youngest brother) & his family. We journeyed all the way to Ipoh for this. But the highlight in this quest has got to be when we finally got to meet and "huuuuuuggggg" this cousin whom I had been looking for all of his life. And of course all these years, have always been extremely close to my good ole funky cousin Ray in KL. Sadly though, have not as yet been able to meet up with more first cousins in Ipoh. I guess Melaka is where we'll head next. More cousins there. There's also another cousin given away at birth to someone in Negri Sembilan. Sadly, she's one person I may never get to meet in this lifetime. DDFS.(deep dark family secrets) :( Then there's my grandma's only brother's family who live(d) in Sinagapore that we visited only once as kids... I've come up against brick walls trying to locate them. But I'm not about to give up yet. Extremely scary to think that the person standing next to you could be your kin!

Now back to tracing them roots...........and explaining to son Johann why he has "sepet" eyes while his bro and sis do not; or better still leave that to hubby- seeing that this particular trait comes from his side of the family! .....but that's another story. His story.