Some Links to Read about President Niinistö of Finland

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As a followup to my attendance at FinnFest 2017 in Minneapolis last week (Sep 21 – 24), I have done some Google research to find links to news coverage of President Niinistö’s visit. Here is a brief selection:

Dropping the Puck at NHL hockey pre-season game

https://www.nhl.com/wild/news/finland-president-visits-092117/c-291247206

The President’s Personal Webpage:

http://www.tpk.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=365353&culture=en-US’

U of M to confer honorary degree on Sauli Niinistö, President of Finland:

https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/u-m-confer-honorary-degree-sauli-niinist%C3%B6-president-finland

FinnSource on President Niinistö visit:

http://finnsource.org/presidential-visit-sept-2017/

Minnesota Orchestra: Celebrating Finland’s Centennial:

https://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2017/09/22/minnesota-orchestra-celebrating-finlands-centennial

Hope you enjoy these bits of coverage. I know I did. And if you find other coverage items, please let me know at whuskonen@gmail.com.

A Blast from the Past: FinnFest 2007 Program Notes

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I can hardly believe that it was 10 years ago that FinnFest was in Ashtabula. Having just returned from Minneapolis and FinnFest 2017, I was curious about what publicity for that earlier event might still be available. So I went online and checked the website for the Star Beacon, the daily newspaper published in Ashtabula. Here’s a preview of the program for the 2007 event:

FinnFest speakers to rival Redpath

By CHARLES A. ALTONEN

Finnfestusa2007.com [link no longer working]

ASHTABULA – One of America’s greatest assets during the early years of the 20th Century was the famed Redpath Lyceum Bureau.

Essentially a speakers club, the Redpath featured great orators and educators, people with ideas and ideology who could speak publicly and knowledgably on the subjects of their choice.

Interestingly, the annual FinnFest USA that has been held all across the country over 24 years is quite similar. Each festival features a host of speakers, experts if you will, in a variety of subjects from industry to drama, music to genealogy, and politics to film and more. All who dare to be involved as speakers oft times bite off more than they can chew for their audiences are not only critical (which is good) but nearly experts in the same fields (which is also good) for they have studied their heritage over and over and not only know it well, but live it well, as well.

The lecturer, presenter, speaker list for FinnFest USA 2007 @ Ashtabula is turning out to be full of interesting variety, nearly all of it related in some way to Lake Erie and her early American industries and to the activities and organizations that held a young immigrant nation together as they adapted and assimilated into the American way of life.

As of Dec. 17, the topical agenda established by the Ashtabula FinnFest program committee decided discussions should cover life on the coal and ore docks, the many industries in which our immigrant forebears labored, and farming; notable Finnish-Americans, and Finland today and yesterday from an historical, literary, artistic, musical and cultural aspect.

Those expert individuals who have already made arrangements to speak to FinnFest attendees include: Don Cleary, who will talk about the Diamond Alkalai Corporation in Fairport Harbor where hundreds of Finns earned the money to put bread on the table and save for retirement. Clyde Norton of Ashtabula will speak on the historical aspects of Haywood Beach in this community, founded and maintained by Finnish-Americans since 1936. Chuck Isaacson will make an interesting and musical presentation on the famed Humina Band from Ashtabula which toured Finland in 1927, playing for famed Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius. And Lawson Stevenson will make a presentation about the Hulett operators and the docks of Lake Erie.

Anna Bento and Juanita Erickson will become “storyweavers” in a presentation of Kalevala tales. Carl Rahkonen will discuss and play favorite Finnish and Finnish-American musical instruments, the fiddle and the kantele. Sherry Rahkonen will make a presentation on women’s suffrage in Finland and what the results have been over the last many centuries, and Marianne Wargelin will lecture on the Finnish people in America. Dr. Wargelin is an absolute expert in this field.

Peter Lillback will discuss his mother’s new book which he edited: “Rediscovering John Morton, the Forgotten Finnish Founding Father.” (Morton, a Finn, was a signer of the American Declaration of Independence. His name is clearly visible on that document.)

Steve Lehto will discuss the book, “Death’s Door,” which is about the famed Italian Hall fire in Calumet, Michigan in which many Finns lost their lives. Margaret Väiniö from Saarijarvi, Finland will travel here to tell us how the English Christmas Carol, “Good King Wenceslas” can be traced to Finland. Wally Huskonen [that’s me] will conduct a program on genealogy research, and Walfrid Huskonen [my brother] will discuss U.S. President Herbert Hoover and his relationship to the Finnish people.

Other speakers and lecturers include Melinda Laituri with a presentation on Finland’s natural resources (forest lumber, copper, zinc and more.) Robert Hill of Warren will talk about the American Steel Industry and the varied roles Finnish-Americans played in it’s development. Walt Plosila of Conneaut will explore his Finnish roots from the 1550ss into the 20th Century and their migration to Conneaut. Plosila will have two sessions for his presentation which will include his humongous postcard collection.

I (Chuck Aaltonen) will discuss the temperance movement and building of temperance halls in the Ashtabula area during the last two decades of the 19th Century. He will take two sessions to cover the material and displays. Finnish-American Reporter Senior Editor, Jim Kurtti will talk about his “Family Letters,” and Marie Fowler will discuss her Moomin tales.

Suzanne Koski will discuss Finland’s connection to world famous Faberge eggs; Bill Lagerroos of Madison, WI will present his Conneaut Connection; Mika Roinila will discuss the Finnish connection to the fishing industry on the Great Lakes; and a number of high franking Finnish officials will appear here to make presentations and take part in FinnFest USA 2007 @ Ashtabula.

We are expecting Varpu Lindstrom who will bring along his movie, “Letters from Karelia;” and Ben Strout, with the movie he produced, “Fire and Ice.” Local Finnish-American museums will be represented and the tours that have been arranged for Fairport Harbor and Conneaut, will be exciting additions to this magnificent festival.

I would second Chuck Altonen’s view of this presenter lineup providing a “magnificent festival.” Like other Finnish-American families, we Huskonens used the occasion to hold a mini-reunion.

I first attended FinnFest in 1996 when it was held in Marquette, Michigan. My wife and I were able to attend FinnFest 2013 in Houghton, Michigan, and had planned to attend FinnFest 2015 in Buffalo, New York. Life got in the way of those plans for 2015, so it was great to be able to attend FinnFest once again and participate in the 2017 edition./2007

Encountering Security for Finland President Niinistö’s Visit to FinnFest 2017

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I popped into the Starbuck’s coffee bar in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel to buy a bottle of fruit juice last Saturday (23 Sep 2017).

In front of me in line were two gentlemen in suits. Both had earpieces and the coiled cable connecting those earpieces to receivers. They chatted briefly — in English — then I asked if they were involved in security. The man closer to me replied that they were. When they turned toward me, I saw they each had a small lapel pin on their suit coats and that the pins were different. The gentleman closer to me acknowledged that he was an agent with the American Secret Service and that he was helping provide security during the visit of Finland’s President Niinistö. I asked if his college was from Finland and he said yes. That gentleman then looked at my FinnFest name badge and we had a brief conversation about my surname, which he recognized as being from Eastern Finland. Both agents were very well-spoken and cordial. As would be expected, there was no exchange of names with the two agents.

During the two events involving appearances by President Niinistö that I attended, I saw no evidence of security details. The agents literally were behind the scenes.

The brief encounter with those American and Finnish security agents in Starbucks was a nice moment, and I’ll remember it as a small highlight of attending FinnFest 2017.

Advice to White Supremacists: You Might Not Want to Test Your DNA

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Last week (Aug 17, 2017) Dick Eastman posted an article with the title above on his blog, “Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.” We are reprinting it here with permission:

UPDATE: This news story is mushrooming. The original news article listed in the article below was knocked offline for a while, probably because thousands of people were accessing it simultaneously. It is back online now but may disappear again due to all the publicity and thousands of people reading the article. However, dozens of other news services have since picked up the story and now it is one of the top trending articles on the Internet.

You can find dozens more stories about this by starting at: http://bit.ly/2wWKhr6

The recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend speak for themselves. The various news media are full of stories about bigotry, racism, and fringe far-right political activities that resulted in murder and also in a lot of embarrassment to the American people. However, there is one genealogy issue that might affect the motivations of these extremists:

Are these white supremacists really “all white?”

I suspect that many white supremacists won’t like to learn the truth.

A geneticist at the University of California at Los Angeles ran a project for months that culminated in the presentation of a paper in Montreal this week at the annual gathering of the American Sociological Association. It seems that DNA testing of many members of one white supremacy organization indicates that a number of those who were tested have mixed racial ancestry. In other words, these white supremacists are not 100% white.

The paper is based on an examination of thousands of posts on Stormfront — a white nationalist online message board launched by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black, a protégé of former KKK leader David Duke.

Ancestry matters to Stormfront users because the website states that members must be of “wholly European descent to be white.”

Oops! Some of the present Stormfront members and even some of the leaders are not eligible for membership in the organization, according to their own DNA.

The publication of the geneticist’s paper is causing a lot of consternation amongst the hate groups. It seems that human biodiversity is far more widespread than what some of the white supremacists ever envisioned.

You can read the full story in article by Jamaal Abdul-Alim in the Diverse Issues in Higher Education web site at: http://diverseeducation.com/article/100349.

Of course, geneticists and anthropologists will probably tell you that very few, if any, of the white populations in North America, Europe, or elsewhere are 100% white.

 

One Hundred Years of Finland’s Independence

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Dec 6, 2017, is the day Finland will officially celebrate its centennial as an independent country. In the lead-up to that momentous day, it is appropriate that Finland has a website with information about the centennial: Suomi Finland 100.

The page on that website that is very interesting to me is “One hundred years of Finland’s independence“.

It provides a 100-year timeline of events and developments year-by-year in Finland and elsewhere in the world.

By reviewing the timeline. I have greatly expanded my knowledge and understanding of the country of origin of my paternal grandparents.

Thanks to Cousin Matti in Finland for suggesting that I look at this website.

 

Take Your Ethnic Purity Business Elsewhere

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This email was distributed to subscribers of the Ancestry Blog a couple days ago. Especially appropriate for us as genealogists is what Ancestry states in the third paragraph:

The entire Ancestry family is horrified and appalled by the tragic events that occurred in Charlottesville. We not only condemn the violence that occurred but are deeply disturbed by the ideologies of the white supremacist groups who marched there.

As a company, we believe in the importance of diversity, unity and acceptance, as well as the fundamental truth that we are all more alike than not. Our purpose as a company, and the intent of our products, is to bring our shared diversity into the spotlight in order to promote understanding and equality. To be clear, we are against any use of our product in an attempt to promote divisiveness or justify twisted ideologies.

Our product is built on science, which illustrates the diversity in all of us. People looking to use our services to prove they are ethnically “pure” are going to be deeply disappointed. We encourage them to take their business elsewhere.

Diversity is quite literally part of every person in this country and this planet. We built our AncestryDNA and family history products to celebrate just that—the diversity within each of us and the connections that bring us closer together. Diversity, after all, is in all of our DNA and is the very foundation of Ancestry.

Thanks Ancestry for making this statement about modern society.

Hello to Finnish Cousins

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I just received word via email that notice of my recent posts about Cousin Matti sending Kaapro Huuskonen’s biography to me, and how he and my brother Walfrid translated it into English, has been circulated to other Huuskonen (original spelling of surname) cousins.

For their benefit, in case they take a look at this blog, I thought I might write a bit about my interest in my Finnish ancestry and include some links to earlier posts about my grandparents.

In 1995, I traveled to Salt Lake City for a business conference on steelmaking. After the day’s activities were over, a colleague said he was going to visit the Family History Library (now called FamilySearch Library — see photo) to do some family research. Having nothing better to do for the evening, I went along.

While I was looking at databases on CDs for people with my surname, I heard an announcement over the public address system that there would be a short seminar on Finnish Genealogy Research starting in a few minutes. I told my colleague that I had to take advantage of this opportunity.

The instructor was able to convince me that even though I didn’t read or speak Finnish I could still research about my ancestors. She provided a list of key Finnish words and their English translations that would be essential to understanding Finnish records.

The first thing I did when I returned home was to contact my brother Walfrid in Oklahoma. Ironically, while I was being exposed to the idea of researching Finnish ancestry in Salt Lake City, he was in Portland, Oregon, attending FinnFest 1995. He said that he had obtained passport and passenger ticket information for our grandparents and their travel to America.

FinnFest USA is an annual gathering of people of Finnish ancestry at various sites around America. My brother and I arranged to attend FinnFest 1996 together in Marquette, Michigan. We picked up a little more information about genealogical research, and we were exposed to many aspects of Finnish culture.

Subsequently, we attended FinnFest 2007 in Ashtabula, Ohio (and had a mini family reunion) and I attended FinnFest 2013 in Houghton, Michigan. I presented talks at the 2007 and 2013 events describing how I had collected more information about my Finnish Ancestry.

In October 2011, I started the blog, www.collectingancestors.com. Given that my motherdescended from immigrants to America during the colonial period, part of the blog content deals with that part of my genealogy and family history. But many of the posts cover what I have learned about my Finnish ancestry. Here are some examples:

From Finland to America: How the Evert Huuskonen Family Traveled to Ashtabula County, Ohio

Grandpa Evert Huuskonen’s Journey to America 

Evert and Ida Huuskonen from Vesanto and Rautalampi, Finland 

Evert Huskonen — Laborer, Farm Operator, Farm Owner, Retired Farmer 

Grandma Was an Alien! 

More on Grandma Huskonen’s Alien Registration 

Grandpa Huskonen Becomes a U.S. Citizen 

These can be read like chapters in a book about my grandparents. Eventually, I want to add material about their parents and other relatives in Finland.

 

 

 

Burning the Turnip Patch

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In today’s earlier post containing Kaapro (aka Gabriel) Huuskonen’s biography, there was the following statement about his farming practices in Finland: “Every summer he burned off a small patch for turnips … ” This intrigued me so I did a Google Search and came up with an interesting website exactly about this practice in Finland.

On the website Nationalparks.fi, there is an extensive discussion of “Landscapes Moulded by Slash-and-Burn.” I had read about slash-and-burn farming before but never in this much detail. To see the web page with details, go to http://www.nationalparks.fi/telkkamaki/sights

Talkkamaki is a preserve where traditional farming methods are practiced. Don’t worry, it’s all translated into understandable — if not idiomatic — English.  And it does specifically mention planting turnips:

Crops grown on slash-and-burn land include turnips, rye, barley, buckwheat, oats and flax. If the turnip it is grown, it is sown during the week before the Mid-Summer celebration in late June. The old way to sow turnip seeds is putting them in the mouth and spitting them out down to the ground. The area is raked before and after sowing.

Turnips have been traditionally grown in Finland because they can grow and mature in the relatively short growing season. Also, they can be stored and used during the winter months.

I seem to remember having turnip dishes occasionally as a child, but not recently. Does anybody reading this eat turnip dishes? A quick Google search turned up this website with four recipes that sound palatable: https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/popular-ingredients/turnip-recipes

More on Gift of Family History from Finland

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Yesterday, I received the email below from my brother, Walfrid. It was a follow-up to the subject of my post on Aug 8 (http://www.collectingancestors.com/2017/08/10/a-gift-of-family-info-from-finland/ )

Wallace,
Attached is my translation of Kaapro Kustaanpoika Huuskonen.  I had help from Matti [a cousin in Finland and the provider of the subject biography] in translating a couple of places, in particular about the burn off for the turnip patch and Mustalais-Kallu.  Mustalais-Kallu and Korhos-Kalle are the same construction form but in the first Mustalais- is taken from the adjective gypsy and in the second Korhos-is taken from Korhonen.

Here is his translation of the attached biography of Kaapro Kustaanpoika  (aka Gabriel, son of Gustav. Ancestry.com calculated him to be my 1st cousin, two times removed). It is an entry similar to those seen in American county histories published in the late 1800s or early 1900s. I have inserted some explanatory material in square brackets [ ]:

Huuskosen Suku I [Huuskonen Family I]
Aarne Huuskonen [the compiler/author]
Published by the Huuskosten Sukuseura r.y. [Huskonen Family Association]
Helsinki 1972
Lindellin Kirjapaino Oy [printing company, still in existance. See: http://www.kirjapaino.com/ ]

(Pages 89-90)

Kaapro Kustaanpoika Huuskonen, born 11 March 1859 in the then Rautalampi, died 22 April 1950 at Majo [farm name], Vesanto [Rautalampi was the original parish; Vesanto a daughter parish established in the 1880s].  He cared for his large farm with enthusiasm and skill, maintaining his house in good condition, truly still keeping up traditional forms of agriculture.  Every summer he burned off a small patch for turnips, took an interest in cutting leaves and deciduous tree branches for fodder) and had tall manure piles.  Crops were in good condition.  He continued working until his death.  Even as a ninety-year-old he split all the firewood needed for the house.  He hated laziness and indolence.  Servants stayed at Majo for years because the employer paid the hired help well.  Some, who did not marry, were at Majo their entire lives and the farm offered good care in their old age

Kaapro was also clever with his hands; but not, it is said as good as his brother August, Rutkolan [another farm name] head of household, to whom he sometimes went for sharpening his scythes and other things. The farm yard and fields at Majo were in unusually good order.  You did not see farm tools thrown about or machinery outside.  Everything was in its place, it sheds and other storage places.  No wonder Oskar Hämäläinen (professor Albert Hämäläinen’s brother) sang, that “At Majo there is a model house, where the places gleam, the girls are fine, they steal your heart…”

Kaapro particularly liked his daughters.  The relationship with his sons was difficult, which lead to Kalle and Nestori going to America.  That trait of old Huuskonens.  Certainly Kaapro, as a father, demanded hard work from his daughters, but gave money and clothes to them more easily than to his boys.  Fifty years ago when the first womens’ bicycles appeared in Vesanto, the girls of Majo began to want them.  Their mother was of the opinion that they should buy only two although there were four girls, but their father said that if they buy any they would buy one for each.  Certainly, in the village they were amazed when Majo’s girls rode to church in a row and how much money had been spent for them.

In the 1800’s and later Majo engaged in the practice of fishing and so there was good fishing equipment in the household.  Kaapro liked fish very much, in particular smelt was his favorite.  It is true that it was not found in Keitele (lake) but was in Vesijärvi (lake) and they resorted to the help of people from Rutkola.  Kaapro was unusually kind-hearted.  During one winter Mustalais- Kallu (gysy Kallu), or another way of looking at it a tramp or vagrant was supported at Majo for months; as was Korhos-Kalle or Kalle Korhonen.  No one left Majo without help, even if it was a question of money, grain seed, or seed potatoes.  Also, he helped related students.

He read the Bible diligently and always aloud.  Many times he was heard preaching from the field.  The bible was from the middle of the 1800s.  He was not able to write except to sign his name.

Kaapro loved his family and wanted to keep Majo in the family.  When both boys had gone to America, where Kalle died, he wanted Nestori to come back to take the farm for himself.  Nestori finally came and married Olga Ritvanen from Mäkelä, and he received the farm in his name.  Kaapro’s wife was Emma Liimatainen, from Alatalo, Särkisalo.

Kaapro was modest and avoided publicity.  The girls secretly arranged a small celebration for his 75th birthday.  As the guests arrived the man of the hour disappeared and was later found sitting on a rock on the shore of Keitele lake.  He was also headstrong, he stopped smoking as an 80-year-old.

I am now working to reconcile this information with entries in my Ancestry.com family tree. I intend to consult MyHeritage and FamilySearch in this effort at locating documentation. I also will consult Finnish websites for this data.

 

Uncle Walter’s Marriage Found Online

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Today, I opened one of the hints on Ancestry.com and it led me to the marriage record of my great uncle Walter Chase Dingman. I had visited the Archives for Trumbull County, Ohio, in Warren, more than 15 years ago to obtain a paper copy of this marriage record. Now it is available online. If you guessed that I hadn’t scanned the paper copy and added it to my tree yet, you would be correct. Now all that was required to add the digital image to Walter’s profile in my family tree was a click of the computer mouse. Such is the progress of online records for genealogy.

I had heard a couple years ago that the marriage records held in Warren would be unavailable for awhile — because they were being digitized by FamilySearch volunteers. I don’t know when this record was put online, but I’m glad I found it today.

The hint from Ancestry led me to the marriage record image at FamilySearch.org. This is another example of the cooperation/collaboration between Ancestry and FamilySearch.

Now for the facts from the marriage record: It was Uncle Walter’s first marriage at age 67 (he reported to the clerk that he was only 65). It was Mina Mae (Waid) Woolley’s second marriage (her first husband was deceased) and she reported that she was 61 years of age. They were married on 1 May 1948 by Horace J. Braden, M.G. [minister of God].

The couple resided in the house she owned in Kinsman, Ohio.