Season 5 Episode 2 –
They Had to Leave Everything
In this episode, Brian sits down with Tamara Buzina-Adams, author of The Last Ship to Freedom, to discuss the captivating journey of uncovering her family’s escape from post-imperial Russia. Tamara shares how her genealogical journey began unexpectedly while researching her husband’s Polish ancestry, eventually leading her back to five long-forgotten diaries written by her grandmother starting at age eleven. These diaries, written in beautiful pre-revolutionary Russian cursive, detail a harrowing yet vibrant 18-month period spent living aboard a ship during the chaotic Crimean evacuation of 1920. Throughout the conversation, Tamara highlights the “detective work” required to piece together a historical narrative when traditional records seem out of reach. She describes utilizing a diverse toolkit—from collaborating with fluent family members for translations to using Google Translate and connecting with distant relatives who possessed matching photographs of the very ship her grandmother lived on. By matching family stories of horses in the Black Sea with historical events like the evacuation at Novorossiysk, Tamara demonstrates how understanding the broader political and historical context can breathe life into the “dash” between an ancestor’s birth and death dates.
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How to Find Tamara Buzyna Adams Last Ship to Freedom is on Amazon: https://amzn.to/45QcsKw Website: https://www.tamarabuzynaadams.com/ Instagram: / author_tamara_adams