At the end of the nineteenth century a young man studying to become a physician writes a short preface to a manuscript about the research he has done on his large extended family. He remembers once more the old ones and wonders, in his own mind, who will think of them again.
" Family remembrances used to frequently be no older than to the time of the generation of our great- grandfathers, often only to the generation of our grandfathers. Usually we are not interested in such things in our day to day life. Everyone looks to his future --not to his past. ... Therefore it is possible that a man who had worked hard for his whole life ...might, falling asleep forever, be forgotten by his descendants. Forgotten by those for whom he had worked so hard -- and sometimes only a few generations later."
Josef Vyborny, September 1888
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