Sunday, May 16, 2010
What is loinen?
Loinen can be translated as parasite but only in the sense that these people did not have their "own" place to live. They were probably at the bottom of the economical status order, but you shouldn't look at it as a sign of disapproval. Just a classification.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
How can siblings have different family names?
Between 1880's-1920's family names in western Finland became more common among general population. (People with education and trade people in towns had family names already in 1600's.) During this period the adoption of Finnish names (as opposed to the Swedish and Latin ones used previously) started as well.
As the name conventions were loose, people chose names without rules or traditions. Personally I find it waste of time to wonder why
a) children chose different name than parents
b) siblings chose different names
c) a particular name was chosen
d) people would change names several times
because all that just happened.
(In Eastern Finland common people have had family names 1500's which is an uncommonly long time in European context.)
You can read more at http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article216e.htm
As the name conventions were loose, people chose names without rules or traditions. Personally I find it waste of time to wonder why
a) children chose different name than parents
b) siblings chose different names
c) a particular name was chosen
d) people would change names several times
because all that just happened.
(In Eastern Finland common people have had family names 1500's which is an uncommonly long time in European context.)
You can read more at http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article216e.htm
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Where to post a query?
A general hint for discussion forums is to
a) Check the amount of activity. Low activity means that there is less chance to get a reply.
b) Check the quality of replies.
On the forums relating to Finnish genealogy in English there are usually few people answering and more asking questions. If the previous queries are unanswered or answered poorly, then you might want to try some place else.
Alternatives I am aware of:
a) do not have enough information to "jump the pond", in which case the only thing to say is: you need more information, go and try to find it
b) do have enough information but do not explain why they are not proceeding with the research.
If you are simply looking for someone to do your genealogy for you, there are professionals for that. More on finding them later.
a) Check the amount of activity. Low activity means that there is less chance to get a reply.
b) Check the quality of replies.
On the forums relating to Finnish genealogy in English there are usually few people answering and more asking questions. If the previous queries are unanswered or answered poorly, then you might want to try some place else.
Alternatives I am aware of:
- The Finlander Forum was originally focused on the Swedish speaking areas of Finland, but I think it has widened since then. Active.
- Ancestry.com message board for Finland has Americans posting and only a few people from Finland checking in. Linked to the Rootsweb Finland mailing list
- Yahoo Group FinlandGenealogy is not very active, but people usually get a reply.
- GenForum for Finland reasonable activity.
a) do not have enough information to "jump the pond", in which case the only thing to say is: you need more information, go and try to find it
b) do have enough information but do not explain why they are not proceeding with the research.
If you are simply looking for someone to do your genealogy for you, there are professionals for that. More on finding them later.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Where in Finland is...?
You can use Google maps if you like. But sometimes a better option is the official map site: Kansalaisen karttapaikka. It provides an address search but the the more useful option is place name search.
Do not worry about the municipality field unless you are already sure you have the right value for it. Enter the name you are searching to the search field. To search for places with the beginning of the name only, cut with *.
In the result list each row ends with the type of place: House, swamp, island, forest, elevation etc. Before that you can see the municipality the place is in. Press control down and select all that look promising and click "Show selected on the map".
Please note that farms/houses today are not necessarily in the same place as the farm/house with the same name ~100 years ago.
Do not worry about the municipality field unless you are already sure you have the right value for it. Enter the name you are searching to the search field. To search for places with the beginning of the name only, cut with *.
In the result list each row ends with the type of place: House, swamp, island, forest, elevation etc. Before that you can see the municipality the place is in. Press control down and select all that look promising and click "Show selected on the map".
Please note that farms/houses today are not necessarily in the same place as the farm/house with the same name ~100 years ago.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Did the only eat potatoes?
"Did I tell you that, in response to my comment that the family was land wealthy, Kathy replied, "Mummu said all they ate was potatoes some days"?"
- Finland was a poor country until WWII. Our last real famine was as recently as 1866-67.
- Farmers, of course, ate what they produced. The traditional Finnish food has been very plain and monotonous. What my grandmother (who grew up at a fairly prosperous farm) describes being the diet during her youth, doesn't seem very appealing to me. Since I have grown up eating lasagna, pizza...
So Kathy's "mummu" quite possible ate mostly potatoes at her home in Finland, as did many other people as well. And after coming to America and experiencing a greater variety of food stuffs, her opinion of the old days could very well have been coloured as not-very-rosy.
- Finland was a poor country until WWII. Our last real famine was as recently as 1866-67.
- Farmers, of course, ate what they produced. The traditional Finnish food has been very plain and monotonous. What my grandmother (who grew up at a fairly prosperous farm) describes being the diet during her youth, doesn't seem very appealing to me. Since I have grown up eating lasagna, pizza...
So Kathy's "mummu" quite possible ate mostly potatoes at her home in Finland, as did many other people as well. And after coming to America and experiencing a greater variety of food stuffs, her opinion of the old days could very well have been coloured as not-very-rosy.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
What is torppari?
Conventional translation of torppari is crofter, but as I don't know what sort of terms crofters were living under, I don't know if that is accurate or not.
A torppari had a (probably small and simple) house and a plot of land to farm (these together form the torppa). This was not an independent farm, but a part of one. A torppari would pay rent, usually by working a set amount of days per week for the farmer. Additionally there could be yearly work product requirements like spinning yarn, gathering berries, making baskets, making trips to the closest town ... whatever was agreed. Often they also needed to work extra days during harvest - just when they would have needed to work on their own land as well. The saying is that moon is the sun of a torppari.
The agreements were seldom on paper so the torppari position was not very secure. But it could also be that the torppa would go from father to son for several generations (as was the case in one part of my own ancestry). Whereas farms are often (though not always) today in the same place they were a hundred years ago, torppas can be harder to locate as they could be a long distance away from the actual farm. After the civil war of 1918 we got a law that allowed the torppari's to buy the land (or equivalent) and many small farms were created. Many of these have since disappeared.
In church books torppa is usually on the pages after the main farm. Depending on the parish they can also be in a separate book reserved for non-owning class.
A torppari had a (probably small and simple) house and a plot of land to farm (these together form the torppa). This was not an independent farm, but a part of one. A torppari would pay rent, usually by working a set amount of days per week for the farmer. Additionally there could be yearly work product requirements like spinning yarn, gathering berries, making baskets, making trips to the closest town ... whatever was agreed. Often they also needed to work extra days during harvest - just when they would have needed to work on their own land as well. The saying is that moon is the sun of a torppari.
The agreements were seldom on paper so the torppari position was not very secure. But it could also be that the torppa would go from father to son for several generations (as was the case in one part of my own ancestry). Whereas farms are often (though not always) today in the same place they were a hundred years ago, torppas can be harder to locate as they could be a long distance away from the actual farm. After the civil war of 1918 we got a law that allowed the torppari's to buy the land (or equivalent) and many small farms were created. Many of these have since disappeared.
In church books torppa is usually on the pages after the main farm. Depending on the parish they can also be in a separate book reserved for non-owning class.
Friday, April 2, 2010
What is the big deal about Å, Ä and Ö?
Many Finnish people and internet searches will make a difference between a and å&ä and respectively between o and ö. Why? Because they are different letters.
Finnish is written phonetically. And we have more vowels than the English alphabet allows for.
Strictly speaking you don't need Å for Finnish. In Finnish it is called "Swedish-O", as it is pronounced usually the same as O and it is "swedish" because in Finnish text the place you see it in is names with Swedish origins.
But with Ä and Ö, Å is part of the Finnish alphabet. They are the 3 last letters, which might be useful to know when looking at indexes and registers.
Finnish alphabet with pronounciation from Wikibooks.
Finnish is written phonetically. And we have more vowels than the English alphabet allows for.
Strictly speaking you don't need Å for Finnish. In Finnish it is called "Swedish-O", as it is pronounced usually the same as O and it is "swedish" because in Finnish text the place you see it in is names with Swedish origins.
But with Ä and Ö, Å is part of the Finnish alphabet. They are the 3 last letters, which might be useful to know when looking at indexes and registers.
Finnish alphabet with pronounciation from Wikibooks.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Are Johan and Juha different people?
All official documents in Finland were written in Swedish until late 1800's. The language of record applied also to names. A person called Matti would be recorded as Matts and a Liisa as Lisa or Elisabeth. And the same applied also to place names and family names.
How to record the names to your genealogy?
So there are 2 different schools who continue to disagree
1) those who record names as they are, in Swedish, but having to do some normalisation as the names are usually spelled several ways. So for example, unless you want to save space you could write the patronym in the full for Johansdotter even though in many records it is shortened.
2) those who feel it is more correct to record names in a Finnish form. If they read Pardain or Pardanen they record Partanen as that is the name today. First name Staffan can be recoded as Tahvo or Tapani based on what was the most common Finnish form of the first names based on the saint name Stephan in the area.
My personal preference is for the first in terms of first names because I can't claim telephatic skills to choose one of the many forms of for example Johan or Catharina in Finnish to be the "right" one. I feel more comfortable in normalizing the family names or farm names to the "modern" forms, as there is less/no guessing involved.
By the way, we still celebrate name days based on the old Catholic Saint calendar in Finland. (Additions have been made, though) So on Saint John's day in June men named Johannes, Juhani, Juha, Jukka, Janne, Juho, Jani, Jussi or Juhana are all honored. If they would have been born 200 years ago they would all be known in written documents as Johan. On November 25th, the day of Saint Catharine of Alexandria, among the name sakes are Katri, Kati, Kaisa, Kaarina, Kaisu, Riina, Katriina, all of whom could have been recorded as Catharina/Karin/Kaisa in church records, no matter what their families actually called them.
How to record the names to your genealogy?
So there are 2 different schools who continue to disagree
1) those who record names as they are, in Swedish, but having to do some normalisation as the names are usually spelled several ways. So for example, unless you want to save space you could write the patronym in the full for Johansdotter even though in many records it is shortened.
2) those who feel it is more correct to record names in a Finnish form. If they read Pardain or Pardanen they record Partanen as that is the name today. First name Staffan can be recoded as Tahvo or Tapani based on what was the most common Finnish form of the first names based on the saint name Stephan in the area.
My personal preference is for the first in terms of first names because I can't claim telephatic skills to choose one of the many forms of for example Johan or Catharina in Finnish to be the "right" one. I feel more comfortable in normalizing the family names or farm names to the "modern" forms, as there is less/no guessing involved.
By the way, we still celebrate name days based on the old Catholic Saint calendar in Finland. (Additions have been made, though) So on Saint John's day in June men named Johannes, Juhani, Juha, Jukka, Janne, Juho, Jani, Jussi or Juhana are all honored. If they would have been born 200 years ago they would all be known in written documents as Johan. On November 25th, the day of Saint Catharine of Alexandria, among the name sakes are Katri, Kati, Kaisa, Kaarina, Kaisu, Riina, Katriina, all of whom could have been recorded as Catharina/Karin/Kaisa in church records, no matter what their families actually called them.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
What is Lääni? Do I need to care?
Genealogists from USA are used to thinking about entities like counties and states. Which makes transitions to Finland some times difficult.
"Naturally" Finnish towns (or parishes) have been grouped by our government. But
a) that grouping has been done and redone over centuries, the latest change was this year
b) there are different groupings for different things, for example tax records vs. court records
For basic genealogy, using church records, you only need to pay attention to
- Parish (~town)
- Village
- Farm
In the countryside everyone is noted as living on farm. Occasionally there can be a separate page or two for per village for those people who did not live strictly speaking on any farm. But sometimes these people have also be noted on the farm page.
Number and size of villages can vary a lot by geographic area. An easy way to locate a list of villages is via Hiski : Choose a parish from the list and click "selected". On the next page click the link at the bottom of the page "More information about this parish". And the next page contains the names of the villages. Among other useful information but more about that later.
"Naturally" Finnish towns (or parishes) have been grouped by our government. But
a) that grouping has been done and redone over centuries, the latest change was this year
b) there are different groupings for different things, for example tax records vs. court records
For basic genealogy, using church records, you only need to pay attention to
- Parish (~town)
- Village
- Farm
In the countryside everyone is noted as living on farm. Occasionally there can be a separate page or two for per village for those people who did not live strictly speaking on any farm. But sometimes these people have also be noted on the farm page.
Number and size of villages can vary a lot by geographic area. An easy way to locate a list of villages is via Hiski : Choose a parish from the list and click "selected". On the next page click the link at the bottom of the page "More information about this parish". And the next page contains the names of the villages. Among other useful information but more about that later.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
How do I use Hiski?
Blog Genealogy in Finland contained one set of instructions, this is my version:
In Hiski searches it is usually helpful to
1) Check what is the time period of the data available.
2) Fill in as little as possible and add if there are too many results
Starting from http://hiski.genealogia.fi/historia/indexe.htm click Search program for history books.
Then scroll down in the alphabetical list to the relevant parish, click the name and then the "Selected" button below.
Next page shows the dates. As per (1) above, look at them before doing anything else. Once you have the impression that you can find something useful, click the document type Christened / Married / Buried
Let's say Christened, to search for birth record. As per (2) you can start with limiting the years to a sensible window. Either one year or a couple if you are less certain. And then put the first name to the Child/first name field. Click submit and review results. If the list is really too long to go through, click "to the search form" and try to come up with additional search criteria that is not too strict.
But commonly you are able to find the right row either by matching the date you have and/or finding the surname used in USA as either father's name or farm name.
The result page is showing all the information that has been included to the Hiski index of history books. Which is not the full extent of Finnish church records.
In Hiski searches it is usually helpful to
1) Check what is the time period of the data available.
2) Fill in as little as possible and add if there are too many results
Starting from http://hiski.genealogia.fi/historia/indexe.htm click Search program for history books.
Then scroll down in the alphabetical list to the relevant parish, click the name and then the "Selected" button below.
Next page shows the dates. As per (1) above, look at them before doing anything else. Once you have the impression that you can find something useful, click the document type Christened / Married / Buried
Let's say Christened, to search for birth record. As per (2) you can start with limiting the years to a sensible window. Either one year or a couple if you are less certain. And then put the first name to the Child/first name field. Click submit and review results. If the list is really too long to go through, click "to the search form" and try to come up with additional search criteria that is not too strict.
But commonly you are able to find the right row either by matching the date you have and/or finding the surname used in USA as either father's name or farm name.
The result page is showing all the information that has been included to the Hiski index of history books. Which is not the full extent of Finnish church records.
Friday, March 19, 2010
What is a common name in Finland?
Finnish names might seem weird and uncommon abroad, but some of them are really common in Finland and it makes no sense to send a query like "anyone with name Peltola"?
Should you ever have a need to understand commonness of a surname in Finland the place to go is
Finnish population register which has the link Name service on the front page. After clicking that click surname search at left and then simply write the name to the search field and click "Search".
You need to have the right spelling of the name, of course. Which means having ä and ö if necessary. More about those later.
Should you ever have a need to understand commonness of a surname in Finland the place to go is
Finnish population register which has the link Name service on the front page. After clicking that click surname search at left and then simply write the name to the search field and click "Search".
You need to have the right spelling of the name, of course. Which means having ä and ö if necessary. More about those later.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
How is Finnish genealogy different from American?
Let me count the ways. The language is different, the records are different and the ways to access them is different. Name structure is different, culture is different...
I have no plans to rewrite basics of Finnish genealogy to this blog. There are plenty of places you can find them already on the internet. The one I like the most is the LDS pdf, but alternatives are available via your preferred search engine.
One thing to start with. Finnish genealogical research is not based on grave stones. Many of us find Americans asking after grave locations rather peculiar. To the extent that my friend did not reply to a letter from an American relative. She thought there might be some weird religious reason for the question and did not want to be involved...
Which is not to say that Finns wouldn't have graveyards and would not visit them. Generally each parish has a graveyard next to the church and possibly a later addition further a way. Asking the parish office can tell you details of the locations, but they do not necessarily have maps or lists of the burials.
Often there is no grave to find, because the plot that has been reused. Depending on your background you may find this shocking or callous. But that is the way Finnish graveyards have been managed for centuries.
You are not in Kansas anymore.
I have no plans to rewrite basics of Finnish genealogy to this blog. There are plenty of places you can find them already on the internet. The one I like the most is the LDS pdf, but alternatives are available via your preferred search engine.
One thing to start with. Finnish genealogical research is not based on grave stones. Many of us find Americans asking after grave locations rather peculiar. To the extent that my friend did not reply to a letter from an American relative. She thought there might be some weird religious reason for the question and did not want to be involved...
Which is not to say that Finns wouldn't have graveyards and would not visit them. Generally each parish has a graveyard next to the church and possibly a later addition further a way. Asking the parish office can tell you details of the locations, but they do not necessarily have maps or lists of the burials.
Often there is no grave to find, because the plot that has been reused. Depending on your background you may find this shocking or callous. But that is the way Finnish graveyards have been managed for centuries.
You are not in Kansas anymore.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Start
I was writing yet another Discussion forum reply with way more information than was asked for, so I thought I might as well start a blog to publize my great wisdom in Finnish genealogical research. While trying out for addresses it turned out there was already a promising blog called Genealogy in Finland, but the more the merrier?
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