Finding My Way Through Finland: Researching the In-Laws and Writing a Family History Book

Property belonging to a branch of the family

Over the last couple of months or so, I have been researching, for the first time, in a language with which I am completely unfamiliar:  Finnish.  I have also undertaken research about a family and relationships about which I knew very little: that of my spouse.  Whereas with my family there was a certain amount of known lore and a familiarity with names and places, with another family I have a lot less to go on.

My first stop was to send my spouse out to find out some basic information:  names, dates and places.  I got lucky.  I received a book, in Finnish, which was apparently a book about one branch of the family.  I could figure enough out from a basic understanding of how books and language work to find a person and contact information in the book.  I took a chance and sent an e-mail, in English, to the contact name.  What a find!  The individual was the head of the family association, and was really excited to help me learn more about the family.

Also, going on what little family story there was, I contacted the Finnish parish of the town I believed our ancestors were from.  I had great success.  Already I had uncovered several generations.  I also had a number of other questions to sort through.

The really interesting aspect of Finnish genealogical research is surnames.  The family I was researching had a lot of peasant stock.  They were primarily tenant farmers.  Tenant farmers tended to move from farm to farm.  When they moved, they took the surname of the farm they were on:  their surname changed!  At first I could not verify the passenger records because of the unfamiliar surname, but with this better understanding of Finnish naming conventions (which changed in the early 20th century by the way) I could sort out familial relationships a little more effectively.


There was an aspect of Finnish research that I found absolutely wonderful:  everyone was incredibly helpful.  I sent inquiries to archives, libraries, police stations, parish records offices and lots of people from the family association I was working with.  The head of the family association even got in his car and drove to the old family house and the old family farm to take pictures!  One of the members of the association translated a couple of chapters of the Finnish book for me, and also provided a very useful guide to Finnish land ownership, so I could sort through last names and the family history a little better.

Picture of family house

I have never had so much success researching a family before, and so quickly.  I found cousins, aunts, uncles, and loads of people who were only related by marriage.  They were all remarkably helpful (and fortunately their English was much better than my Finnish).  Finland also has digitized many of their records, making searching much easier.  Once I sorted through the Finnish genealogical terminology, things really started to come together.

Another aspect of this work that was new to me was creating a family history book from my findings.  I used Blurb, although I have used Picaboo for other projects in the past.  I would say the difference is that Blurb is more of a self-publishing site, while Picaboo is excellent at photobooks.  I think for the distribution and publication for family members in far away places, Blurb is probably a better choice.

I feel really good about the work and pulling together a story about Finnish pioneers in Canada in the early 20th century, and uncovering so many family stories.  It's a format and approach I hadn't thought about before, but I will now tackle for other branches of the family tree.