Genealogy Jottings

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.