Genealogy Jottings

Last week I wrote about the fate of my grandmother’s relative, Rosie Poraas. Grandma thought poor Rosie had frozen to death in a Hibbing snowbank, but I learned that she actually died from pneumonia.

Grandma often mentioned several of her relatives, including Rosie. As a youngster I never paid much attention to the relationships of these people to Grandma or to myself. When I began researching my family history in earnest, Grandma was gone, and my mom was vague on some of the details.

So my question became “How was Rosie related to Grandma and to me?” I began with this information:

1. Grandma’s parents, Ada and Alex Mattila, emigrated from Vyborg, Finland. Grandma told me that none of Ada’s family came over to the U.S., so I reasoned Rosie must have been a Mattila relative.
2. Three of Alex’s seven or eight sisters, Anna Anderson, Olga Silberg, and a third who lived in Biwabik, MN emigrated to the United States.
3. Poraas was Rosie’s married name.

Perhaps Rosie was a sister or niece of Alex. Research in Finland parish records did not locate any sister named Rose. Her birth years on U.S. census records indicated that she was more likely a niece. So was one of Alex’s sisters the mother of Rosie?

I could eliminate both Anna and Olga as candidates. My mom knew these women, and she knew their children, her mother’s cousins. Rosie was not one of them.

So what about the aunt in Biwabik? After much research, I learned that her name was Ida Marie Mattila Mattson Parks, and she died in 1917. Did she have a daughter named Rosie?

The Mattson family’s ship passenger list states that Ida traveled to America with children Elsa, Yrgo, and Martha. The record also has a tantalizing note about an unnamed 17-year-old daughter. Rosie?

U.S. census records reveal that the older daughter was named Alice, not Rosie. Furthermore, the Finnish parish records list only Alice, Elsa, Yrgo, and Martha as children for Ida Marie. If she was not Rosie’s mother, who was?

Still hypothesizing that Rose was Alex’s niece, I returned to the Finland parish records to identify the children of Alex’s surviving sisters remaining in Finland—Karolina Mattila, Eva Emilia Mattila, and Sophia Mattila (Mrs. Karl Ripatti. This time I found a birth record for a daughter, Rosa Wilhelmina, born to Sophia Mattila in Vyborg on 30 Aug 1896. Perhaps this Rosa Wilhelmina was Rosie Poraas.

The proof came when I searched for Rosie’s death certificate at the Minnesota Historical Society Library earlier this month. It listed her parents as Sophia Mattila and Carl Ripotti of Vyborg, Finland. At last, a family for Rosie. She and Grandma were first cousins; their parents were sister and brother.