As the weather warms up there will be more opportunities for photography - this month in particular will be busier as my husband is engaged in several hunting related seminars. The weather is so awful- it's brutally cold at times with the wind that blasts through Merritt and even on the coast there was 10 cm. of snow. My sister told me the story of how her car glided through an intersection in Burnaby on pure ice- brakes were absolutely useless.
But back to the NVFGC event: I'm pleased that Othmar himself got a prize for best wildlife photo! There was a good turnout for the dinner/awards considering there was another large event going on in town. I thought I would share some of the pictures (which were taken rather hurriedly on my part) as well as a few other things I'm engaged in.
Genealogy project: this has been an ongoing thing for decades that I'm determined to finish this year. The (basic) translation of enough documentation to build a family tree along with the story behind the immigration of my parents and their ancestors. My mother's side of the family is mostly put together but it's my father's that is such a monumental task. I have a document archive of about 100 or so old papers written in German, Hungarian, and as it goes further back, Latin (not including personal letters of more recent vintage). The website Burgenland Bunch has been a great resource for me and recently I got in contact with some very knowledgeable people to try to focus my efforts on tracing back an apparent nobility. I've also delved into the history of Europe with more interest than in my high school days and have to be grateful for the internet being what it is: a place, where if you look hard enough and make use of all the available tools, is a potential goldmine of information for just about any subject you care to name. That's not to say all of it is accurate or unbiased!
It comes through that we have it very easy compared to those who came before us. My father's people lived in the border region of Austria within a few kilometers of Hungary. It seems his ancestors knew nothing but war for centuries with just a few breaks of relative peace in between...Catholics versus protestants, one monarchy versus another, infighting within the regions...my mother as well come to think of it. She was technically born in Poland but other members of her family from the same village are technically of German citizenship simply because a border changed during the war. I just discovered last month that my father was (technically) a Hungarian- 1 month after he was born his hometown- along with the entire Burgenland- was given to Austria. His parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc. hung onto every piece of official documentation that was required of their people (particularly birth records) which is very fortunate for me in the study of my genealogy.
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