Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com is a wonderful, albeit expensive resource.  Depending on what type of data you are looking for, it can be a goldmine for information to add to your family tree and your research.  The database increases constantly as new collections are digitized and become available to the public.

That being said, there are a few things about it that annoy me:

1.       They make you pay for results that are freely available, but not so neatly indexed - great examples are Britain's BMD Index, and some of the records from Library and Archives Canada.

2.      If you go outside of your country's records, you have to upgrade your account.  I'm Canadian, so I will have to get a world explorer account and pay way more, since I hail from a nation of immigrants.

3.      I can't find a feature to add in members of family via adoption. 

4.      Some of the results are absurd.  You think you are having things send back by relevance, and then you get nothing within your search parameters.  I tried searching "E Salonen" and selected gender as male.  The next thing you know I am finding results for Edith Salonen in Tallahassee.  Go figure.

There are also some features that I love:
1) If you switch addresses from ancestry.ca to ancestry.com you can access a tool called "find your famous relatives".  This is one of my favs, and I am certain it is my sister's.  I love knowing that I am 2nd Cousin 16 times removed from Sir Isaac Newton!   9th Cousin 2 times removed from Lucille Ball?  Yes please!  8th Cousin 8 times removed from Jane Austen?  Could that be any more awesome? (Ok, it can, we are also related to Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to name a few).
2)  Ancestry.com is currently beta-testing a new merge feature for adding family tree data from another member's to you tree.  It makes it much easier to see the similarities and the differences in your information for each relative added.

Anyway, to get back on track, one of the next things that happened with Annina and I was teaming up on research.  She had a 2 week free trial account and a lot of information, and I had a paid account with very little information.  By teaming up, we have added some great stuff!  We have also been able to collaborate with other members of the Storckovius family that use ancestry.com.  I will get back to that later...

I started also using the names and locations that Annina knew and used Google to start expanding.  I discovered other genealogy websites that I could use, such as geni.com.  Many, many people out there have information on Simon Storckovius and his descendants, which are plentiful and spread around the world.  As Annina had told me, our family was very well documented in the 17th and 18th centuries in Finland, which would be very advantageous to our research.  In addition, there is a gigantic Storckovius family history that gives quite a bit of detail (I think I mentioned this 600 page masterpiece).

Here is a peek (Note that Annina and I are from the 4^th branch descending from Henrik):

From here, life got much, much easier.

The Ann Connection

Back in early April of 2011, I received a message on Facebook from a woman named Annina, from Helsinki, Finland.  She had recently been on vacation in New York City, NY, USA and had become interested in searching records related to her family travelling to North America.  She registered for a trail ancestry.com account, and some of her information matched mine.

I had spent hours and hours doing research on the British side of my family with a moderate amount of success, but I had little to no information on my Finnish family.  I couldn’t wait to reply! 

Through back and forth messages and emails, Annina advised me that we were actually cousins:

So, it seems that we are related via your grandfather Eero Salonen. His mother Ina was sister of my great grandmother Maria Kaivola (Salonen was her maiden name). Also, one fun fact is that my grandfather (son of Maria) was also named Eero :) The Eeros were cousins, and that makes us some little cousins.

You might already know, that the family of Ina and Kalle Salonen left from Finland to live in Canada. I must admit, that I still haven't figured all the details but might get some help as I get more information from my older relatives.

I have a couple of old photos: one was taken of Ina's family, supposedly still in Finland. I also have one photo that has been taken in Duluth, Minnesota, but I don't know the people. I can scan these and send you, as soon as I get back to work on Monday.

The good news for your search is, that we belong to the broadest family that has ever been researched in Finland - the Storckovius family. The first forefather has been a priest, so of those people there was left more information than of "normal" people. And because the Storckovius family has been widely researched, it is possible to have the known information about it - actually I just asked for a copy in CD format.

I updated the information I have about our family to Ancestry.com, I wonder if you can see it? I'll add the link here.

I am SO excited about finding you and hope we can continue sharing information about our family.

Now tell me she is not the sweetest cousin ever. 

I dare you. 

Annina gave me access to information I would never have found out for myself.  Since that one fateful message, we’ve spent hours emailing, using video chat, talking on the phone and even visiting.  She has been a blessing, and this post is about how it all began.

How would I ever have known that our family name has been changed numerous times? We started out as Storckovius, then became Riikonen, then Salonens. In fact, my great-grandfather Kalle took his wife Ina’s surname (Salonen) and dropped his Swedish surname of Sten. There were rumours about the reason behind these changes. My great uncle Charlie (Kalle Kustaa) Salonen had told my mother many years ago that his father and their family wanted a Finnish surname to be more ethnically pure. Back then, Finns hated Swedes and Russians as the oppressors and wanted nothing to do with them – a fact later confirmed my great-uncle Arne Salonen.

Another important fact was finding out from which parish our family hailed, as all records are organized in Finland according to your local parish. The Salonens-Storckovii are all from the town of Laukaa, Laansi-Suomi, Finland. I could now start searching records for myself.

On top of all of that, Annina also had access to some research that was published in Finland by an amateur genealogist named Tommy Koukka. She even sent me the full text version for my own use...all 600 pages in Finnish.

Not long afterward, I started taking Finnish lessons in Toronto. I still can't speak the language very well and my reading is at a beginner level, but I can understand some of the information I come across in the records, and that is real progress.

Annina and I are only a few months apart in age. Her great-grandmother and my great-grandmother were sisters. We call each other 'pikkupikkuserkku' which means little little cousin (2nd cousin) in English. Annina is the Finnish name that would translate to Anna in English. We both have grandfathers named Eero (Eric) and great-grandfathers named Kalle (Carl). We have similar interests and hobbies. Born on different sides of the world and raised in completely different manners, we are still alarmingly alike.

We call it the Ann connection.

Geneology research

The Beginning:

Several years ago, when I was still living in Toronto and attending the university there, I became interested in searching out family history.  I had some information to go on, and wanted to expand my knowledge and find more family members.

Being a Salonen is not always easy:  lots of people in our family don't get along and do not talk to each other.  That being said, family is important, and like the Russian proverb says, "Don't forget the past-you'll lose both eyes!".

When I started this is what I basically knew:

My father Michael is a Salonen.  His father Eric came from Finland sometime between 1920-1945 and spent some time in the US. Eric was married to a woman who lived in the US as well, who may or may not hav ealso been a Finnish citizen.  My grandmother Marie was his second wife, and she was born in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

My mother was born a Jervis.  Jervises come from England.  Her mother was a Chasty, with split ancestry between England and Poland (Polish maternal line [Mielco], English paternal line).

I had a box of old family photos my grandfather Harry Jervis has given me and a family tree made up by our Mielco cousins in the 1990s.  That was my starting point.

Over the years, I have used clues given to me by interviewing family members.  I registered for an ancestry.com account to build my family tree.  I have searched many, many online databases, and haunted libraries in Ontario.  I have spent some weekends going through cemeteries looking for headstones.

And best of all, I have made contact with cousins around the globe, but we will get to that later.

Sometimes people in the family ask me why I have spent so much time and money doing this research.  Both my grandpa Harry and my papa Alex have both passed away.  I lost my dear cousin Ellen.  It's been a hard few years within the family.  Tracing our roots and contacting relatives seems more important than ever.  Many of my best family "historians" are becoming elderly and their knowledge will go with them.  All I can do is try my best to research what I can, and share my findings with the people I care about.