There’s a fine line between passionate research and completely losing your mind. I fear I may be slipping across it.
I’ve spent the last few days fixated on why my great-great-great-grandfather (another Juan, obviously) died in Toledo in 1823 instead of Madrid, where every other record placed him. Why did he go there? Was he sick? On business? Running from something? I have no idea, and that bothers me.
Genealogy does this to you. It gives you just enough information to make you deeply invested and then yanks the full story out of reach, leaving you clawing at dusty pages and chasing phantoms. So I did the only logical thing: I took the train to Toledo.
Now, Toledo is beautiful. It is the kind of city that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a different century. The buildings lean over you, the streets twist unpredictably, and the whole place smells faintly of stone and time. Which was all very poetic until I made the mistake of walking up one of its medieval hills. No one warned me. Toledo is not a city; it is a cardiovascular workout disguised as a tourist attraction. My knees were not ready for this.
By the time I arrived at the local archive, I looked like I had barely survived some kind of siege. The woman at the desk took one glance at me and immediately became suspicious. I was sweating. I was limping. I was slightly out of breath. She asked me (in Spanish) what I needed, and I, a man who has been speaking Spanish since high school, forgot every word I had ever learned.
For some reason, I panicked and said, in very broken Spanish, something along the lines of: “I look for my dead family.” Which, if you’ve never said that out loud before, I can assure you is not a great first impression.
Her eyebrows went up. I realized my mistake. I attempted to clarify. It did not help.
After an excruciating back-and-forth, I finally got my request across, and she directed me to a room filled with records that had not been digitized. A genuine, untouched goldmine of old documents. This was it. This was the moment.
I sat down, carefully turned the pages, and within twenty minutes, I found his name.
Juan García, died 1823. Cause of death: “Fiebre de los huesos.” Bone fever.
Now, I have seen many archaic medical terms in my time, but what the hell is bone fever? I had never heard of it before. It sounded ominous. I sat there staring at the page, feeling like I had just unlocked a new level of confusion.
I looked up to ask the archive woman if she knew what it meant, but she was already watching me with deep concern. Probably because I had been whispering to myself for several minutes and had an expression that likely screamed unhinged academic on the verge of a breakdown.
I did the only thing I could do. I nodded politely, thanked her, and left before she called security.
Now I have another mystery to solve. What was bone fever? Why did Juan die from it? And—most importantly—can I Google this without my search history making me look like a lunatic?
Genealogy, man. It never ends.