Genealogy Jottings

Archive for the ‘Finland’ Category

Last night I received an unexpected phone call. The woman at the other end of the line identified herself as one of my mother’s Mattila cousins.

My mom had spoken of this cousin, and we even have her high school picture. But we lost contact with her and her one surviving sibling after the parents divorced many years ago.

Now another relative has put her in touch with me to get a little information about our shared family history. I am always happy to share what I know, and that is why my family trees are posted on the norsky.net website. I hope my new-found cousin and I will correspond in the future and make discoveries together, as I do with other cousins on other branches of my family tree.

A wise genealogist once told me that I should never stop writing to cousins. Different information flows down different family lines. We can put together complete family pictures only when we all share our information and stories. I am looking forward to learning more about the Mattila family from the lady who reached out to me last night.

I find that I make more progress with my genealogical research when I focus on one familyline at a time. Recently I am feeling almost disoriented because I have not been following my own advice. All year, I have tried to find the discipline to study only the Finns, but I keep getting distracted.

Earlier this month, I went to Salt Lake City for a research trip. After one day with Finnish records, I needed a break from that difficult task. I spent the remainder of my time at the LDS library investigating my English and Scots-Irish lines in the American Midwest.

I resumed some Finnish research once I returned home, but a week later I attended the semi-annual Palatines to America seminar in Denver. This took my attention away from the Finns again as I spent an entire day learning about German research from Dr. Michael Lacopo.

What a harried month! The Finns, the English, the Scots-Irish, the Americans, the Germans! No wonder my head spins. I need to get everything I collected this month filed and put away pronto. Perhaps then I can get back to the focused research tool that works for me, the laser, not the shotgun.

My mom’s Finnish cousin from Minnesota visited me yesterday. She brought along some old photo albums that she had found in her mother’s cedar chest. She did not know whether they had belonged to her mother or to her grandmother (my great-grandmother, Ada Alina Lampinen Mattila).

Filled with heavy black pages, the books overflowed with photographs. Sadly, virtually none of them had been labeled. This cousin sought to find out whether I could recognize anyone.

It became pretty much a futile effort. Faces of long-dead Finns stared out at us from the pages, but aside from noticing a strong family resemblance, we could identify only a few people.

Then we came to a photograph of two women and three children taken at a studio in Wiborg, Finland. Underneath, someone had written, “Our Grandmother”. This really caught my attention. Whose grandmother was she? Paternal or maternal side?

Using every analytical tool I know for old photographs, I inspected this photo. I decided that even if the album belonged to Ada Mattila, she did not write the caption. She would have written in Finnish, not English. The writer must have been one of her children, so “Our Grandmother” was either Ada’s mother (Anna Meittinen Lampinen) or Ada’s mother-in-law (Liisa Myllynen Mattila).

The Mattilas lived near Wiborg/Viborg/Viipuri, but the Lampinens came from further north. This must be Liisa Mattila, probably with a daughter and three grandchildren. Which daughter? She had eight of them.

There is no date on the photo, but the clothing looks turn-of-the-twentieth century. I know that Liisa’s daughter, Ida Mattson, was widowed with three small children about that time. Ida and family then emigrated to the U.S. in 1908. Could they have posed for this photo before they left?

That is my best guess. Until I learn otherwise, my new treasure will be identified as a photo of my great-great grandmother Liisa Mattila; her daughter, Ida Mattson; and her grandchildren Elsa, Yrgo (George), and Martha.

This week my husband and I spent three days at the massive genealogy library in Salt Lake City. To prepare for this trip, I had scoured the online catalog for call numbers that might relate to the Finns I am studying this year. The LDS church has not yet digitized all of its Finnish collection, so I can either order microfilm and fiche to be sent to Denver (at $5+ per roll), or I could make this trip to look at as many rolls as physically possible in three days.

Upon arrival I sat down at a microfilm reader on the international floor of the library. Yet even though I thought I had devised a suitable research plan, I felt overwhelmed as I stared at the materials I had brought along. I scarcely knew where to look first.

Finally, I decided to begin with land, court, and guardian records because I cannot get those online at home. The first rolls of film I pulled were all in Finnish or Swedish (of course, but I cannot read either language). To boot, they were not indexed. Dead end for me at this point.

In growing frustration, I looked again at the lists I had brought. Maybe I could try looking at communion books. I had no idea what information they might contain, but at least they seemed to be organized by head of family.

Looking at these call numbers, I realized the communion books are on fiche, not microfilm, and I did not know where to find them in the library. A helpful staff member finally located the appropriate spot, but she told me, “No one ever uses these.” I sat down at the fiche reader anyway. When I asked where I could make copies of anything I found, she replied that she did not think I could.

I sighed and began searching the fiche. Slowly, I deciphered how these unfamiliar records were kept. I found them extremely difficult to read, not only because of the script used. Whenever someone left the family, through marriage or death, for example, the record keeper drew a line through the name. Still, I did locate my Mattilas in the two volumes kept from the 1870’s through the 1890’s. I also found numerous entries for Myllynens, but I do not know which of these might be mine. I copied down all the families onto the legal pad I carried.

While I worked, a group touring the library came by. Their tour guide told them, “Here is the microfiche, but no one ever uses it.” Except me. Still, late in the day, another library patron sat down to look at some of the fiche. As we bemoaned having to make all hand-written notes because we could not make copies of the records, another staff member wandered by. “Oh, but you can!” he informed us. It turns out that their snazzy little microfilm-copying machines have a fiche-printing feature.

By the end of the day, I felt exhausted from this research. I did not have much to show for the hours of work except for a list of people with my Myllynen surname and a slight familiarity with a new record set. Discouraged, I gave up on the Finns for the rest of my visit. Maybe their records will be indexed someday. In the meantime, give me the good old American stuff. At least I understand how our records are kept, and I can read them.

I spent the next two days happily working on the U.S. floors of the library.

After observing recently that the genealogy message boards no longer seemed to result in many new connections, I must confess that I had not entirely given up on them. Now I am very glad that I kept on posting.

I had come to the end of the line with my Finnish great-grandmother, Ada Alina Lampinen. No one in the family knew anything about her origins except that “they all stayed in Finland.” No names, no places.

My earliest record for her was the 1904 Viipuri marriage to my great-grandfather when she was nearly 25 years old. I hypothesized that she and Alex married there because her family lived there. Still, I found nothing further about her or any connection to family members in the Viipuri records.

I chalked up my lack of success to my frustrating unfamiliarity with Finnish records, so I turned to the Finland message boards for help. Very quickly I received a GenForum reply. My Ada came from Juuka parish in then-Kuopio province just north of Viipuri province. The reply included a link to her baptismal record and the names and birthdates for her parents. What a gift!

I now have so much more information to use in my search. The message boards my be less busy these days, but they are still worth a try. Thanks to all who take time to lend a hand via these boards.

So who drowned? I posed this question a couple of weeks ago as I pondered finding the truth hidden in family lore. My grandmother had told me that her paternal grandfather Antti Mattila had drowned/died at sea long ago in Finland. Yet when I located his burial record, I found that he died of tuberculosis. If not the grandfather, someone else must have suffered the fate of drowning. The drowning of a relative is a dramatic event that people tend to remember.

I kept searching the burial records for a drowning, looking for all the Mattila sisters, their husbands, and their children. I finally found the likely candidate. Kalle Ville Ripatti, husband of Antti’s daughter, Sofia Mattila, drowned at age 23 in 1899. This must have been the story my grandmother heard.

Sofia and Kalle Ripatti were her aunt and uncle. She never met them because he died before she was born, and Sofia remained in Finland. It would have been easy for Grandma to confuse the identity of the victim when she had never met the numerous relatives who stayed behind in the old country. Of course this story stuck in the minds of those who immigrated to America, and they probably talked about the tragedy.

Even aside from the drowning of her husband, poor Sofia led a very hard life. Her father died of tuberculosis when she was just 12, and her next-older sister Helena passed away from the same disease two years later. Sofia became an unwed mother to her daughter Rosa before marrying Kalle Ripatti in 1896. Then he drowned less than three years later, leaving her with 3-year-old Rosa and two younger children. How did Sofia ever survive all this? In her own way, she must have felt like she was drowning, too.

I cannot remember exactly what my Finnish grandmother told me about her father’s birth family. She said he was the only boy, but was he the youngest of nine, or did he have nine sisters? I do not recall.

Lately, I have scoured 19th-century Finnish baptismal records in an effort to find out. I am finding this task infinitely more difficult than the same search would be in American records. Aside from the difficult-to-read Gothic script used in the records, Finnish names during the period varied between Finnish and Swedish renderings, and patronymics or surnames. Thus, the father’s name in the records I am reviewing could be either Antti or Anders, Mattila or Abelsson (and I did find a Paulsson, too, but I am not positive this is the same guy).

To do a thorough search, I must look for all these names in any order. So how many permutations and combinations can you make out of these names? At least eight by my count–Antti Mattila, Antti Abelsson, Anders Mattila, Anders Abelsson, Mattila Antti, Mattila Anders, Abelsson Antti, and Abelsson Anders. I should probably look for more records on this Anders Paulsson as well to determine whether I have the right person. Oh, and I must not to forget to search for initials instead of full names. And would he have had a nickname?

Every Finnish name is like this. Comprehensive research takes forever, but searching for every possibility is the only way to make sure I compile an accurate family tree. So far, I have located baptism records for seven, maybe eight children of Antti Mattila. I know I am searching for at least nine. If they do not all turn up with searches for the father’s name, I will try the mother’s with all her possible combinations. It gets overwhelming unless you apply the science of permutations and combinations.

Every genealogist hears family tales but knows they are not always true. Over the years, I have heard my share of family stories from earlier generations. I try to research each one, looking for that nugget of truth beneath the embellishments, exaggerations, and confused details.

Here is an example. My Finnish grandmother told me that her paternal grandfather was a fisherman who had drowned when his only son was a small boy. True?

Not completely. From Finnish parish records, I have learned that the paternal grandfather was named Antti Mattila, and he lived in the village of Alasommee, near Vyborg. He did die when his son was just 4 years old, but not from drowning. His 1882 death record states that he died from tuberculosis.

This makes sense, too. Tuberculosis struck everywhere in Karelian Finland in those days. Just a couple of years later, Antti Mattila’s eldest daughter Helena died from the same disease.

So who drowned?

Some time ago, I wrote about my search for the roots of my grandmother’s cousin, Rosie Porras. She came from Finland, and I theorized that she was the daughter of Ida Mattila of Biwabik, MN. Today I came across some new information that makes me think otherwise.

As I went through Finnish baptism records for Ida’s children, I never found a child with a name anything like “Rose”. Then I turned to searching for a marriage and children for another Mattila sister, Sofia. There I found a record for the birth of a daughter, Rosa Wilhelmina, in 1896, prior to Sofia’s marriage to Kalle Ripatti. Could she be the Rosie who came to America separately from Ida in 1913? In Finland, was she always known as Rosa Mattila or was she Rosa Ripatti?

I have a new clue to search in the emgration/immigration records! Rosie, I am on the way to getting you figured out.

As I chase down my Finns, I have pinpointed them to the city of Viipuri/Viborg/Vyborg and the surrounding area. Many of the people in this area claim a Karelian heritage, a sub-group of Finnish ethnicity. They purport to be the “purest” Finns, not contaminated from interaction with Swedes. Today’s Karelians live in the vicinity of Europe’s largest lake, Lake Ladoga. The people are distributed across eastern Finland,  Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, and the Republic of Karelia (which is part of Russia). Viipuri and its environs lie in the Leningrad Oblast.

But not everyone there is Karelian. Was my family? I never heard that word as I grew up, so I do not know.

How will I find out? I have been reading every book and article on Karelia that I can find, but there are not many. Very few have been translated into English. With the limited resources I can find, I am learning about such obscure topics as Karelian mushroom hunting and 19th-century childbirth rituals. This is not much to go on, but I do know that my Finnish great-grandmother was an avid mushroom hunter. Yet it would be a stretch to conclude a Karelian heritage from this single fact.

I will keep educating myself about Karelia and Karelians. With enough background information, perhaps I will be able to make a case either for or against Karelian roots.

A church on the Karelian coast