![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Uncle-Zef-Roza-370x540.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI always knew about the existence of my\nuncle Zef and his wife thanks to archival documents of my family and verbal\nhistory, passed down to me from younger Albanian relations that emigrated to\nthe U.S only a couple of decades ago. My uncle and aunt both died young (in their\n30\u2019s) under unusual and mysterious circumstances, but their demise happened\nmore than two decades before one of his younger brothers, my father Martin, met\nand married my Italian mother, Giuseppina, and I was born. A whole generation stood between us! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following my inspiring Facebook moment, I\nwas motivated to do some further online researching into my uncle, and that\u2019s\nwhen I discovered the fascinating news about his role as a guide and\ninterpreter to a Russian that travelled through the lands that are now part of\nMontenegro and Kosovo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ivanaj-foundations.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/A-B-1908.jpg\")
<\/a>This man, Alexandre Baschmakoff (1858-1943), a Russian writer that lived in France, had extensively documented his voyage and related discoveries in a 1911 book written in French entitled: \u201cA travers le Mont\u00e9n\u00e9gro et le pays des Gu\u00e8gues\u201d [Through Montenegro and the Land of the Ghegs]. Also astonishing to me, <\/em>an entire chapter of his book that relates to this story of mine, was translated into English in more recent times by Robert Elsie, a great scholar and translator of Albanian literature, and his translation is available here<\/a>. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1993, in Albania\u2019s National Archives I\ndiscovered, handwritten by my father, a sketch of my paternal family tree\ndating back to 1444 (Skanderbeg\u2019s time!), which is also documented elsewhere in\nthis web site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then, I also started a collection\nthat included my Italian maternal side (dating back to 1664). A dozen years\nago, with the help of a software program, I was able to accumulate several\nhundred names of ancestors, some of their descendants, and their now living\ngenerations in Montenegro, Italy and the USA. \nOn all flanks there are plenty of interesting personalities with\nremarkable pasts!<\/p>\n\n\n\n This recent additional information about my uncle Zef fills some void I had about his life, and it makes me wonder how much more I could probably find by further research in some foreign archives, such as those in London and Belgrade that I know contain interesting documents related to my family. Some of these findings have already been documented here<\/a>, and also published by the Ivanaj Foundation, such as the poetry book<\/a>, by my father Martin and his other younger brother Mirash, which also includes a poignant poem about the demise of uncle Zef\u2019s wife, Roza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After more than a century their legacy is\nstill very much alive, thanks to today\u2019s social media that can be a positive\nforce when used for good purposes and intents. Zef and Roza are resting in peace in a small\ncemetery up in the mountainous area of B\u00ebkaj-Triepshi where I had their remains transferred in 2004. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a>