Sepia Saturday: Comparing Photos to Make A Positive ID

I am so fortunate that a previously unknown cousin found me a couple of years ago through Ancestry.com. She has been a wealth of information about my Finnish family and has shared some fantastic photos and letters. Today she sent me some photos that she found in an old album. Most of them were identified, but this one was not. Immediately, I felt that the woman in the photo was a blood relative. Her eyes reminded me of my Finnish grandmother.

Courtesy Alan and Sara Grostick

It was on the same page as an identified photo of Lea Ahola, the daughter of Jaakko and Ida Ahola, so my cousin guessed that this might be a photo of them. At first glance, I didn't think so. Then I pulled out the known photos of Ida and had to agree. Below is a photo of Ida and an unidentified friend in Vancouver, British Columbia. (My Finnish cousins think that Ida looks like me in this photo.)

Courtesy Antti Honkaharju

In the two photos, the hair is a little different, but the facial features look strikingly similar. I am quite confident that they are the same person. Do you agree?

Ida Sophia Honkaharju, my first cousin twice removed, was born 2 August 1904 in Lapua, Finland. She emigrated to Canada sometime in the late 1920s and married Jaakko Ahola in Vancouver, British Columbia on 26 March 1931. Jaakko and Ida had three children - Esa, Lea and Eljas. Sometime in the thirties, Ida and Jaakko decided to move back to Finland and they settled in Haapajarvi. Ida died on 20 June 1996.

I would very much like to find her descendants. I believe that some of them may still be in Canada. On Ancestry.com, I find an Esa Ahola living in British Columbia as recently as 2002. Maybe he will Google himself one day and find this post. I sure hope so!

Find more posts like this one on the Sepia Saturday blog.

Sepia Saturday #64: The Finnish Cows

Courtesy Sara Grostick

This photo was sent from Lapua, Finland by my great grandfather's sister Sanna (Wiita) Honkaharju to her sister Josefina (Wiita) Kitinoja in the United States. On the back is written, "Tässä minä olen ja tyttärenpoika ja karjani pari vuotta sitten." This translates to, "Here I am and my daughter's son and my cattle a couple of years ago." (Translation thanks to Ismo Nuuja.) This is probably referring to Kalle Herttua whom, according to a letter to Josefina and Sylvia Kitinoja, was helping Sanna with her cows in the summer of 1947. I have another photo of Kalle with his family that looks very similar to this boy, so I think there is a very high probability that it is him.

Kalle Herttua, c.1943

Kalle was born in 1939 to Iska and Liisa (Honkaharju) Herttua, so he would be eight in the cow photo. Sanna was born in December 1874 to my great great grandparents Matti and Justina Wiita, so she is 72 here. It is so nice to see the young and the old working side by side.

This post is inspired by the Sepia Saturday blog. Please visit this blog for links to more great photos and posts.

Amanuensis Monday - Letters from Finland

Last year I was very fortunate to meet a cousin through Ancestry.com who had many items of importance to my Finnish family history research. Among these items were 34 letters from my great grandfather Matti Wiita Reini's sister's family in Finland that were sent to the US. I was also very fortunate to receive a tremendous amount of help translating these letter from Finnish to English from my wonderful Finnish friends, members of the FinnGen community and, eventually, Finnish cousins that I was able to track down thanks to information from the first few translated letters. You may notice that the English is a bit awkward since we strove to preserve the original intent/wording of the letters as much as possible. I edited the translations provided to me just a bit to make them readily understandable. These letters were mostly written right after WWII and show the suffering that the Finnish people were enduring. I chose this one to post because it so clearly shows the state of affairs in which many Finns found themselves.

Lapua, Finland - 26 May 1946.
Dear relatives!
Aunt and cousins, a lot of thanks to you for the parcels that have arrived. I have to describe Mother’s joy- if only you would have seen how Mother enjoyed keeping a a package of coffee under her arm, and saying, "It is good that my dear sister still lives and remembers me and my children and also her children take so much care". This is because mother hasn't had a chance to drink real coffee in such a long time. Now there have been no breaks, as cousin Ernest has sent so many parcels and there has been coffee in all of them and so many other good things that we have not had in many years. A lot of thanks for all the clothes and shoes as we now in summer time get only paper shoes with wooden soles. Also the quite new fabric that we have not seen in many years. It is so odd here that you have to be a good friend with the dealer, then you are sold to under the counter. That's as things are so that sometimes there's new fabric in the shop, but you have to be at the shop right away. We can't as the shops are far away and there is nobody to save any for you, so you have to be without. Liisa’s husband is in the book store and they do not have that type of stuff. It is so wonderful to see fabric with a summer look.

Original in Finnish, Courtesy Sara Grostick

Original in Finnish, Courtesy Sara Grostick

Here the summer is soon at its most beautiful. The leaves on the trees are half grown and the cuckoo is calling and the birds build their nests - in everything you see the beauty of the Creator. It would be lovely if I could shake your hands and thank you, but it is not possible, so I thank you from my heart for everything that I have received from you. The shoes were too big for me, but Mother swapped her smaller size shoes with me so I got the right size anyway. So, we thank you for everything.
With many heartily greetings,
Sanna Liisa and Saima (Honkaharju)
*Translation by Ismo Nuuja*

Finland was decimated by the wars that raged there from 1939-1944. Then, to add insult to injury, the Soviet Union imposed heavy war reparations on Finland after WWII. Most Finns had almost nothing - not even the basic staples of life. In response, the US organized a program called "Finnish Relief" or "Help Finland, Inc", overseen by the former US President Herbert Hoover, to send over desperately needed packages of food, clothing and shoes. Judging from the letters, Matti's sister Josefina (Wiita) Kitinoja was sending these supplies to their sister Sanna Liisa (Wiita) Honkaharju and her children. Most of the 34 letters are from this time period and are full of appreciation for the, obviously, much needed supplies. Lucky for me, some even contained extremely valuable genealogical information.

It was a real eye-opener to be able to read my Finnish family's actual feelings and experiences, especially at such a trying time in their history. Although the letters were often sad, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the various writers' personalities through their individual styles and stories. I can't help but wish that I had letters like these from my own great grandfather, Matti. Unfortunately, that is probably an impossible wish since he did not keep in touch with his family back in Finland or his siblings in the US.

That, however, is a story for another day. One that I am sure to tell...