Genealogy Jottings

Genealogists often encounter difficulty working with non-English names. They sound and look strange to American ears and eyes. But worse, many of our ancestors changed their surnames in an effort to blend in better, making it hard to connect the new American family with the one in the old country.

I am finding examples of this as I hunt my Finnish family. One great-aunt married a man named Parks, reportedly a full-blooded Finn. But “Parks” is not a Finnish name. I do not think I will find any record of him with this name in Finland. So what was his birth name, and how did he come to change it to “Parks”?

A friendly librarian in northern Minnesota has surmised that the original family name was “Parviainen”, and he shortened it to “Parks” to sound more American. Perhaps he did, and I will keep this possibility in mind as I search for more information about this family.

Or perhaps he followed the practice of translating the family name into English as some immigrants did. I know of a Brooks family whose original Finnish name, Joki, meant “river”, so they chose to be called “Brooks” when they came to America. “Brooks” sounds about as Finnish as “Parks” yet one can see the logic in this name change.

I do not know the Finnish word for “Parks”, but maybe a Finnish friend of mine can help me on that. An Americanized name does not have to be a brick wall.