Genealogy Jottings

I changed my tagline on this blog today. I chose the new one after I attended a seminar last weekend and heard an interesting twist on a familiar phrase. We all know that the Declaration of Independence asserted our right to the pursuit of Happiness. The seminar speaker took that phrase and changed it to speak of genealogy as the happiness of pursuit. That really says it all for those of us who relentlessly seek information about our ancestors. So I adopted that thought as my new tagline.

And I have had a happy discovery or two this week. I located a ship passage record for relatives from Finland, and it proved quite interesting. This group came over in 1908, and their record was very detailed–physical descriptions, names and addresses of kin in Finland, and information about relatives already in America.

I still have a couple more ship passage records to locate for my Finns. Four  Mattila siblings in all came over, some with spouses and some with children. I now have the passenger lists for Alex and Ida. I will be truly happy when I have found the records for the rest of them.