Genealogy Jottings

Sexman? What might that be?

I encountered this interesting profession as I powered through the Lampinen family tree shared by my Finnish cousins. A Toivain father-son pair of ancestors, both named Petter, worked as sexmen in the 17^th century. Who employed them, and what did they do?

The word Sexman seemed more a Swedish word than Finnish one to me. When the Toivains lived and worked, Finland was part of Sweden. Many records during that time were kept in the Swedish language.

I plugged the word into Google Translate and searched for an English meaning from either Swedish or Finnish. No result. A sexman was a sexman in all three languages.

Next I turned to the Family Search wiki (https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Swedish_Genealogical_Word_List). They have word lists of genealogical terms, including occupations, for many languages. I tried the Swedish list first, and there I found it.

A sexman was the parish caretaker. My Finnish cousin then explained that the sexman’s obligations included seeing that the congregation members performed their religious duties, obeyed the Commandments, paid their tithes, and paid fines for any ecclesiastical offenses. The sexman also monitored parishioners for infectious diseases and transported ill members to the hospital. He held a key to the ark.

This must have been an important and powerful job in the state-mandated Lutheran Church of the time. Where did my ancestors serve?

The Toivain family lived in the tiny village of Kajoo, part of Juuka parish in Finnish Karelia. The present-day Juuka church is pictured above.

From the record, I cannot determine whether my ancestors had authority over the entire Juuka parish, or just Kajoo and its environs. My Finnish cousins have no more information to offer.

They did provide statistical information on the the Toivains who served as sexman:

1. Petter Toivain, b. 18 Feb 1747 at Kajoo, d. 21 Apr 1809 at Kajoo. Married Anna Frantz 14 May 1765 at Nurmes.
2. Petter Pettersson Toivain, b.21 Jun 1771 at Kajoo, d. 26 Jun 1818 at Kajoo. Married Anna Karjalainen, 25 May 1795, at Kajoo.