Do you have an ancestor or two that you are totally fascinated by? And by that I mean you spend ten times as much time on just that one person, than you do for whole other branches. Well I do. I have two of them in fact, and great grandpa Otto Rafael Winter is one of them.

I have written before about Otto Winter (see the links below), though not for a while as I’ve not done much research on him for quite some time, but I have recently come across a ‘new-to-me’ photo which I think may be him.

Anyway back to my fascination and a little intro: So why him? Well possibly because he’s from Finland for a start, as opposed the most of the rest of my ancestors who were largely from the UK, so researching him has been quite different. But also because there’s so few photos of him, and he wasn’t a diary-keeper, he’s always seemed a bit of a mystery. 

This week’s letter in the ‘Family History Through the Alphabet’ Challenge is F … and immediately I thought of FINLAND, and then FOOTBALL. And as I couldn’t decide between them, I have decided to do both.

F is for FINLAND

I’ve written before about my Great Grandpa Otto Winter, who was born in Finland, and jumped ship in Australia – so I won’t repeat it here. Even though I’m only 1/8th Finnish, I have taken a real interest in my Finnish heritage – maybe because it is something completely different from Australian and English research? Who knows.

When Auckland City Libraries put our the call for the Anzac Day Blog Challenge again, I just had to accept. I would like to introduce you to my Great Grandpa … Otto Rafael Winter … he was a proud Australian.

Born in Helsinki, Finland in 1880, at age 22 Otto chose to leave his family, friends and life as he knew it to become a seaman. This was not only his way of getting to see the world, but also it was the best way to escape compulsory conscription to the Russian Army.