Renowned astronomer Sarah Buchner, best known for her groundbreaking work on pulsars at Cape Town’s MeerKAT radio telescope, recently turned her lens from deep space to deep roots in a heartfelt presentation to the Western Cape Genealogical Society.
The keynote speaker at the event, held on Saturday 17 May at St John’s Church hall in Wynberg, she offered a deeply personal reflection on her family lineage, sharing stories that shaped her identity.
Though her scientific work focuses on some of the universe’s most mysterious remnants, pulsars, Buchner captivated the audience with tales from her ancestral past, particularly that of “Granny Loog” (Johanna Looch), the family matriarch who famously rode on horseback from the Cape to Bedford in the Eastern Cape in the early 1800s.
“There’s something humbling about discovering that I now live just a few hundred metres from a farm once owned by an ancestor 350 years ago,” she said, happily drawing parallels between her astronomical and genealogical pursuits.
Buchner shared stories tied to family names such as Reilly, Gibson, Otto, Hurworth, Glass and Gunn, weaving coincidence, romance and resilience into a narrative that underscores the fundamental interconnectedness of past and present.
Her unique blend of scientific insight and storytelling prowess was warmly received, with organisers praising her ability to “bring genealogy alive in ways we don’t often see.”
Buchner’s presentation left a lasting impression, reminding those attending that both stars and stories can illuminate the path to understanding who we are.
