So Many Ancestors, So Little Time.

Photo of Carla Gerardu-Low with caption that says "The more I find, the more I want to know!"

Isn’t that the truth! I’m Carla Gerardu-Low, and this space is my little corner of the world where I can share my family’s rich history and the journey of uncovering it. With over 3,000 people in my family database, I know I’ll only ever learn a fraction of their stories. Still, what I’ve discovered has profoundly improved my understanding of my immediate family, deepening my connection to my roots and expanding my knowledge of world history.

Our family’s stories span the globe – from Northern Europe to Indonesia to the United States – intertwining personal events with the sweeping currents of history. Genealogy has shown me not only where I come from but also what influenced the lives of those who came before me. Like them, we make daily decisions that move our lives in different directions. It’s about the people we meet, the jobs we do, what we learn, the things we do for fun, and more. That is the same for our ancestors.

My research and blog stories center on the following core surnames: Gerardu, van Bilsen, Low, and Sessions. However, my primary focus has been on the Gerardu family and my Dutch-Indonesian roots. Indos, as Dutch-Indonesians are affectionately called, form a unique and often overlooked cultural group whose history deserves preserving. The forced diaspora of Indos has only made this preservation more urgent, so I would like to do my part to preserve its history.

Alongside my Dutch-Indonesian inquiries, my genealogical branches for the other surnames reach into European and American history dating as far back as the 1600s. While those stories await their turn, this blog is my way of celebrating the interconnectedness of past and present, family and history. I hope they resonate with you and may encourage others to dive into their own stories.

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Latest Post

Everything I Don’t Know About Her: A Family Story From the Dutch East Indies

Uncovering my grandmother’s unwritten life in the Dutch East Indies under colonial rule. What happens when the records are missing, and no one ever told the full story? This post explores the life of my grandmother, an orphan in the Dutch East Indies, raised in a KNIL military family, and largely erased from the historical…