<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[AncestryVision]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ancestryvision 1]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2026 08:18:03 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://project.ancestralvision.me/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[The Family Tree as Living Memory: How Rituals Keep Our Ancestry Alive]]></title><description><![CDATA[Swedish forest on expired Kodak gold 200, 2024 by Gabriela Prochazka by PhD candidate Gulzan Dossanova  Introduction: More Than Just Names on Paper When we think of a family tree, we often imagine a static chart—a dusty record of names and dates used to trace biological links. But from an anthropological perspective, a genealogy is much more. It is a dynamic, living structure that we constantly recreate, interpret, and update through our daily lives. Ancestry isn't just about whom we are...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/the-family-tree-as-living-memory-how-rituals-keep-our-ancestry-alive</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69d1289c2a4608ae0021bd3e</guid><pubDate>Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:08:59 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e2565_119dab09708341ae93176b4509e0ddfd~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rituals among Kazakhs: between tradition and modernity]]></title><description><![CDATA[Yurt in the Kazakh steppes. Photo сredit: George Frost / Library of Congress by Gulžan Dosšanova 	Rituals are a key element of Kazakh culture, linking the past to the present and strengthening social ties within the community. Many of the traditional customs and traditions still persist, some are being rediscovered, and some are practiced in altered forms. In this paper, I will focus on the types of rituals from the funerary complex in Western Kazakhstan, around the towns of Oral and Aqtobe,...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/rituals-among-kazakhs-between-tradition-and-modernity</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6772cfb58e2ba79bab02b053</guid><pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:33:03 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e2565_37b0a5c4601a42fca3864fb1dc97a042~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_800,h_450,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Materiality of Memory: From Ancient Skulls to Digital Spirits]]></title><description><![CDATA[Reflection on the search for physical and spiritual representation Figure 1.  Plastered skull from Beisamoun, PPNB, on display at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem The Human Tether When I began exploring the concept of ancestry, I found myself circling one specific obsession: the "tether." Across every era of human history, we have refused to let the dead simply disappear. Instead, we’ve used our hands to pull them back, carving their essence into pendants, sculptures, and masks. It's about a...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/inspiration-for-the-oracle</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6727cb37d0586acb7811e035</guid><pubDate>Sun, 03 Nov 2024 19:42:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e2565_40c0d323331948c9bc9307946ec1fbda~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_564,h_825,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[DNA Testing: Who Am I? (Hint: Still Don't Know)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hands of my grandfather, Photo by the author. Shot on a Mamiya 645, 50mm. Western Kazakhstan, 2025 I recently did what millions of others have done: I spit into a plastic tube, mailed it to a lab, and waited for an email to tell me "who I am." When the notification finally popped up, I expected a moment of profound clarity. I thought the static would clear, and I’d finally see a straight line back to the people I’ve been researching. Instead, I got a pie chart. The Pie Chart Problem There is...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/dna-testing-who-am-i-hint-still-don-t-know</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6707cb5b5a39eeee1e8aeff3</guid><pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2024 13:20:23 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e2565_a125799c73ac454e82ea3d7b6e835176~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Detective Dilemma: Why I Didn’t Hire a Professional]]></title><description><![CDATA[When you start digging into your roots, you eventually hit a wall. For me, that wall was built of old paper, foreign languages, and a lot of bureaucracy. I’ll admit, I was tempted to take the shortcut. I looked into hiring a professional family detective—someone who could bypass the headaches, dive into the Czech archives, and hand me a finished chronicle of my grandparents' lives. The process is fascinating. These professionals are like time-traveling private investigators. But as I got...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/hiring-a-genealogy-detective</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6707c151e6f6b01fce5ba44b</guid><pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:39:39 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e2565_b9e1be9bb3284cd6a9ffbd937652dc08~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Interviews: Teaching the Machine to Listen]]></title><description><![CDATA[Me and my great-granduncle in his home, Western Kazakhstan, 2025 Below is the list of questions I used to interview my grandfather, my father-in-law, and my great-granduncle. They’re the foundation for how we trained Reachy Mini; in the end, the robot actually took over the role of the interviewer. Navigating these interviews meant navigating a map of the world. Each branch of the family brought a different linguistic challenge. Hugi’s father is Icelandic, but his English is great, so those...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/interview-questions</link><guid isPermaLink="false">670791d62817691b8292fc53</guid><pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2024 08:40:21 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e2565_d9b1539839b3430aa0b02d059082380f~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Gabriela: my family backstory]]></title><description><![CDATA[Me in front of Christmas tree, Czechia circa 1995 Born as a third culture kid, in various stages of my life I got comfortable with always being the 'exotic' one. Like I'm supposed to represent to the questioner an archetype of my 'real culture' which is frankly transient. I learned how to be a cultural chameleon and be comfortable in various settings. As I grew older, I realized that being an expat is a place where I feel the most comfortable. I was born in 1990 to a Kazakh mother, who had...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/my-backstory</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6706b965424af7eb47d047de</guid><pubDate>Wed, 09 Oct 2024 17:13:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3e2565_39faafa12bc649319da1ce71ce052a00~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Grandmother's diary part. I (intro)]]></title><description><![CDATA[I received a diary from my grandmother after she passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic.  I never had a chance to talk to her about it,...]]></description><link>https://project.ancestralvision.me/post/grandmother-s-diary</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6706b84a424af7eb47d0441d</guid><pubDate>Wed, 09 Oct 2024 17:07:58 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Gabriela Prochazka</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>