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DRAFT
Spotlight: Duncan Gardiner, Ph.D., CG
- by Regina Hines Ellison, CGRS
© copyright 1997 by the Board for Certification of Genealogists and FEEFHS;
all rights reserved
Latest Update: 20 April 1998(new eMail address)
DUNCAN B. GARDINER, Ph.D.,
C.G. -- Professional Genealogist, Translator, Author and Lecturer
Webmaster's Note: Republished from On Board", the Newsletter of
the Board for Certification of Genealogists, January 1997 issue with the written and oral
permision of the editor, Elizabeth Shown Mills.
As a university professor of languages who had lived intermittently behind the Iron Curtain,
Duncan Gardiner was frustrated by the snail's pace of research-by-mail when he began
tracing his mother's family in Eastern Slovakia. He knew he was equipped to improve his
lot through on-site study, but that was an expensive proposition.
Knowing that others in his region (Cleveland, Ohio) share his ethnic background, he
reasoned that they might also be interested in their heritage. Correlating the 1857 census of
his ancestral town with a modern Cleveland telephone book, he developed a prospect list
from which he gathered 17 clients.
Thus, Gardiner took his first of many trips abroad to research, simultaneously, for himself
and others. Today, he travels to Eastern Europe for about six weeks every spring and
fall.
"The key to the whole thing is a facility with languages. I am fluent in Czech and German,
as well as French and Russian," Gardiner said. But he also has a good reading knowledge of
Slovak, Hungarian, Latin, and other languages in which parish registers are written; and he
is able to research Polish, Serbo-Croatian, and Hungarian documents. "To walk into a Czech
or Slovak archive and make myself understood is a tremendous advantage," he points
out.
During an academic career that spanned more than three decades, Gardiner received
numerous grants and appointments to attend language institute abroad--including a summer in
Prague, another exchange post at the Czech Academy of Sciences, and yet another stint at
Moscow University.
In 1988, Gardiner became a full-time professional genealogist; in 1990 he certified. He now
serves on the board of directors of the Czechoslovak
Genealogical Society International and the Federation of Eastern European History Societies
and has published on Slavic inguistics and Slovak family history in professional journals. He
is currently the editor of Rocenka, yearbook of the Czechoslovak Genealogical
Society International.
"For clients, I have done research in all fourteen regional archives of the Czech and Slovak
republics," he reports. "But most frequently, I visit the six or eight archives in the
geographical areas which had the highest rates of emigration to the United States."
Gardiner praises the parish registers of Eastern Europe for their completeness and their
physical state. But he also consults land ownership records, census rolls, serfs' lists, and
other resources. "The number and depth of available material are astounding, especially in
the Czech Republic," he advises.
At the time of this interview, Duncan was preparing to leave for six weeks in the Czech
Republic, where he did research for clients, photographed their ancestral villages, and sought
out living relatives. In his spring trip this year, he found a client's 80-year-old cousin in a
Slovak village, a lady with photographs of her parents' wedding that the client had never
seen.
Following each return to the United States, Gardiner completes client reports for a month or
two. Then he has several months to concentrate on local research before his next trip.
At home, his commissions include preparing family histories, but he most poignantly recalls
a bit of adoptee research. Ironically, the birth mother had once lived across the street from
him and had long hoped to find her child. Six months after the connection was made, she
died. "I feel privileged to witness these chapters in people's lives," Gardiner said.
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Webmaster's Note: You can contact Duncan at these
addresses:
Duncan B. Gardiner, Ph.D., Certified Genealogist
12961 Lake Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio 44107-1533
Telephone: (216) 221-9460
FAX: (216) 226-5171
Send eMails to: duncan@en.com
Biography: http://feefhs.org/conf/bio/gardiner.html
HomePage: http://feefhs.org/pg/dg/gardiner.html
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[1997 FEEFHS Convention Program]
[Ethnic, Religious, National Index]
[Location (Address) Index]
[Master IndexPage]
[FEEFHS FrontPage]
[ Website Index]