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Finland Genealogy Research Part Two

15
May

When doing Finland genealogy and researching your Finnish roots, look into Finland history, wars, pestilences, natural disasters, social life, traditions, invasions, religious persecutions, etc. Learn about family movements, migrations, military service, and settlement patterns. 

There are plenty of online resources for Finland genealogy research. Sort through the various websites. Find out which are your favorites and delve into research. Remember to take your time and look forward to finding out all that you can about your Finnish ancestors. There is joy in getting to know them. Happy hunting!

FINLAND GENEALOGY

ARCHIVES

  • Arkistolaitos Arkivverket. https://arkisto.fi/ This is the National Archives of Finland site. It has undertaken two massive projects to digitize the first 3.7 million files in 2009 and 5.5 million files in 2010, including church records. You can start your search by entering the name of a town, city, or parish in the free word search. The files contain incomplete data from the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Parish Records that go back to 1527. The national archives also have records of Finnish Military Parishes and Military Records from the 1800s to the early 1900s and the Orthodox Church Archives from the 1700s to the 1900s. Some of the information may not be available without registering as a researcher due to privacy restrictions. The website can be challenging to navigate.
  • Digitaaliarkisto. http://digi.narc.fi/digi/ This is the National Archives Digital Archive.

BLOGS

CAUSES OF DEATH

CHURCH

COLLECTIONS

  • FamilySearch. https://tinyurl.com/vdtqvdf This lists the Finland collections.
  • Ancestry. Ancestry.com Log into Ancestry and type Finland into the card catalog.
  • MyHeritage. https://tinyurl.com/tdz6bqn  This site has a variety of Finland collections.

COMMUNITY HELP

  • Swedish-Finn Historical Society. http://finlander.genealogia.fi/content.php This is the Finlander Forum. It is a forum for anyone who is interested in Finland genealogy.
  • FamilySearch & Facebook Groups-FamilySearch.org>Search>Research Wiki>Finland>Click on the tab Ask the Community>Click F for Finland> Here you will find a group that you can join where you can share resources, offer training and tips, and get answers from others:
    • Nordic Countries. (a FamilySearch Community)
    • Northern Europe Genealogy Research Community. (a FamilySearch Facebook Group)
    • Finnish Genealogy. In this Facebook group you can discuss and collaborate on Finnish ancestry, migration, and DNA.
  • Miscellaneous Facebook Groups
    • Suomen Sukututkimusseura. This is the Genealogical Society of Finland Facebook group.
    • Genealogy Finland. This Facebook group is for people who are looking for help with their Finland genealogy.
    • Our Scandinavian & Finnish GENEALOGY. This Facebook group is for genealogy, Scandinavian/Finnish culture, history, and genealogy.

DICTIONARIES     

  • Wiktionary. https://fi.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wikisanakirja:Etusivu
  • Glosbe. glosbe.org

DNA

  • Databases that Contain Finnish Data. These are the best DNA sites for Finnish ancestry: MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe, and Ancestry

EMIGRATION/IMMIGRATION

  • The Migration Institute of Finland. https://tinyurl.com/wa9n8eu This site contains many archive materials, such as letter collections, photographs, microfilms, and individual documents. It also has local histories and newspapers of expatriate Finns. It includes the Migrant Register (not available until fall 2020) which includes data on hundreds of thousands of emigrant Finns.
  • SYDABY. http://sydaby.eget.net/swe/emi_intro.htm This site has excellent information on emigration, along with other useful information.

ESTATES

  • Suomen Maatalousmuseo Sarka – Sukutilat Webissä. http://sukutilat.sarka.fi/ This is the Finnish Agricultural Museum’s website. The site provides information on family estates in Finland (in Finnish). Currently there is over 26 000 family estates listed. You can do searches by municipality ("kunta"), village ("kylä"), estate name ("tilanimi") and owner’s surname ("omistajan sukunimi"). The resulting description (in Finnish) has basic data on the estate and in many cases a picture of the last owner. You can copy-paste the description to Google Translate in order to get an English version.

FINLAND

  • Virtual Finland. https://finland.fi/ This site has facts on Finland, both historical and present day.

FINLAND GENEALOGY RESEARCH (Church Records & Learning)

  • Finland’s Family History Association (FFHA). https://www.sukuhistoria.fi/sshy/index_eng.htm Here you will find archived materials such as communion books, census records, court records, and provincial accounts.Finland Genealogy by popular US online genealogists, Price Genealogy: image of a Finnish ancestry record.
  • Digihakemisto. http://en-dot-digihakemisto.appspot.com/ Digihakemisto is a project for making indexes for the church records and other documents found in the national archives.
  • HisKi. http://hiski.genealogia.fi/historia/indexe.htm HisKi is a database of births, marriages, deaths, and migration maintained by the Genealogical Society of Finland.
  • FamilySearch Learning Center. familysearch.org>Help>Learning Center>Finland>Lessons Here you will find lessons/videos for Finland research.
  • FamilySearch Wiki.org. This site is excellent. It covers record types, Finland background, guides to reading Finnish, Swedish, and Latin, research tutorials, as well as online resources. It also has a clickable map of Finland.
  • Genealogy Research. http://sydaby.eget.net/swe/genealogy.html This is June Pelo’s blog. She covers all sorts of topics for Finnish research.
  • Swedish-Finn Historical Society. https://tinyurl.com/qwyls2g This is a beginner’s guide to Finnish family history research.
  • Sukututkimus. http://www.saunalahti.fi/hirvela/index.html This is a great site that has a variety of helpful links (in English or Finnish).
  • European Historical Population Samples Network (EHPS). https://ehps-net.eu/databases/karelian-database The Karelian Database consists of data from parish registers in the Karelian region. Data are collected from catechetical lists, lists of children, and registers of vital statistics (registers of births, marriages, migrations and deaths) from the period 1681-1949.
  • Karjala Database. http://www.karjalatk.fi/index.php?lang=en This database serves many different kinds of research and improves access to church records that are sometimes very difficult to read.

GRAVESTONES/HEADSTONES

LIBRARIES

MAPS

  • OldMapsOnline. https://www.oldmapsonline.org/en/Finland_Proper This is a very nice project with old maps of Finland.
  • Wikimedia Commons. Atlas of Finland. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_Finland This site has a variety of maps, linguistic, geographical, political, and historical maps, etc.
  • University of Texas. https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/finland.html This site has a collection of Finland maps.
  • Heikki Rantatupa Historialliset Kartat. https://tinyurl.com/uc7ddd6 The project is named after researcher Heikki Rantatupa, Finland’s leading expert on old maps. Most of the maps in the service are from the years 1600-1800 but some maps exist until 1950s. The map service is hosted by University of Jyväskylä and it is unfortunately currently available only in Finnish, but it is easy to use if you know the name of the place you are looking for. Just look for the upper corner of the search page where there is the search field with the Finnish text "Karttahaku." Type the name of the location you are searching for and you will get listing of maps relevant to your search.
  • Online Map of Finland. https://asiointi.maanmittauslaitos.fi/karttapaikka/ This site is very useful and has an English user interface.
  •  Doria. https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/78800 This site has maps and atlases of Finland.
  • Karttakäärö. http://karttakaaro.fi/ This site is for maps.    

MILITARY

  • National Archives Militaria Collection. http://kronos.narc.fi/menehtyneet/ This site contains documents on military personnel from 18th century until the beginning of the Finnish autonomy period (approx. 1812).
  • Dead in the War 1914-1922. http://vesta.narc.fi/cgi-bin/db2www/sotasurmaetusivu/main?lang=fi
  • Dead in the War 1939-1945. http://kronos.narc.fi/menehtyneet/

Finland Genealogy by popular US online genealogists, Price Genealogy: image of a Finnish online record.

NAMES

POPULATION

  • Population Center of Finland. http://www.vrk.fi/

SOCIETIES

  • Genealogical Society of Finland. https://tinyurl.com/qk5yjsr The site has masses of valuable information on research of Finnish families.

READING FINNISH DOCUMENTS

  • Swedish-Finn Historical Society. https://tinyurl.com/uaxhhum. This specific page is a listing of the terms and abbreviations in the Finnish Communion Book headings.
  • Swedish-Finn Historical Society. https://tinyurl.com/y32w6prq This specific page is a listing of common terms and abbreviations used in Finnish parish records.
  • Finnish https://finnish.typeit.org/ This page allows you to easily type Finnish characters without a Finnish keyboard. You can edit your text in the box and then copy it to your document, e-mail message, etc.
  • Genealogical Society of Finland. https://www.genealogia.fi/lyhenteita Abbreviations (Swedish, Finnish, and Latin) found in Finnish records.

TOWNS

 TRANSLATION

  • Google Translate. translate.google.com
  • Word Reference. wordreference.com

Price Genealogy has excellent, experienced researchers who can assist you with your Finnish ancestral research. Call us today at (801) 531-0920 for a free consultation.

Stacy

Photo: jampe, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Myll%C3%A4rintanhua_-_panoramio.jpg

Do you have any Finland genealogy work that needs to be done?  Let us know in the comments below!