Frustrating Finnish DNA

As I mentioned in a previous post, I took an autosomal DNA test recently and was curious and excited to find out where the results would lead me. Since I took the test, several genealogical websites have provided me lists of DNA matches to other people.

The first three names on the list of matches that Ancestry.com gave me were all names of cousins I already had on my family tree, all three on my mother’s side. One of these cousins I’ve never met, but the other two I’ve met in person and enjoyed spending time with.

But that was nearly where the navigable connections stopped on my mother’s side. I’ve been able to laboriously sift through my DNA matches and add a number of previously unrecorded relatives to my father's side of the family tree. But discovering new connections to my mother’s side through DNA matches is nearly impossible.

My mother is of Finnish descent. Three of her grandparents—Matti Hietanen, Jr. (1883-1921), Edla Sussana Salo Hietanen (1884-1961) and Mattias Vihtori Stuuri (1888-1981)—were born in Finland and immigrated to the USA as children. Her fourth grandparent, Wilhelmina Elizabeth “Minnie” Hirvi Stuuri (1890-1946), had parents who were both born in Finland and immigrated to the USA as young adults—Wilhelm Heikkinpoika “William” Hirvi (1865-1949) and Wilhenmina “Minnie” Oberg (1865-1945).

Thanks to extensive international research by other family members, especially my cousin Bob Hietanen, the ancestry of my great-grandfather Matti Hietanen, Jr., is known to a great extent. Other cousins, particularly Jaakko Heinimäki, have provided a lot of ancestral research on my great-great-grandfather Wilhelm Hirvi. (These are my sources for the information that I’m a direct descendant in two lines from sixteenth-century Finnish freedom-fighter Jaakko Ilkka.) But for the rest of my Finnish lines I only know a few generations earlier than my great-great-grandparents at best.

I’d hoped that my DNA test would help reveal more of my Finnish relatives and forebears. But there turns out to be an obstacle I didn’t expect. Up through the nineteenth century the Finns had an unusual custom. The surname of a Finnish family was the same as the name of the family’s farm. When a family moved from one farm to another, the family changed its surname to match the new location. This makes genealogical research based on surnames maddening.

This custom is evident in my family tree. For instance my nine times great-grandfather Heikki was born with the last name Punkari in about 1606. At some point he moved, evidently to the Reini farm, and gained the last name Reini. His son Yrjänä, my eight times great-grandfather, was born with the surname Reini about 1660. Evidently he moved about 1685 to the Karhu farm and took that name. His son Esaias, my seven times great-grandfather, was born there about 1704 and evidently remained living there, since he retained the surname Karhu.

In Finland during those days, if a man married a woman and moved to her home, the man took his wife’s last name, since that was the name of the place where he now lived. That’s what happened when my five times great-grandfather Elias Matinpoika Karhu (1760-1809), who was born with the surname Kujala, married my five times great-grandmother Margareta Andersintytär Uhmusberg (1765-1846). For a few generations after that, this line of the family kept the surname Uhmusberg (pronounced Oomsperry), until my great-great-grandfather Matti Juhonpoika Uhmusberg (1857-1915) ended up with the surname Hietanen.

Matti Juhonpoika Uhmusberg Hietanen (1857-1915).

What prompted that name change? No one’s completely sure. But other family researchers have proposed what seems a likely reason. In 1881 Matti Uhmusberg’s elder sister Maria Uhmusberg (1856-1935) married Jaakko Hermanninpoika Aittanen and moved to the Renko farm where there was a cottage named Hietanen. It’s possible that Matti at one point lived in the cottage on his sister’s farm and took the surname Hietanen from the cottage before he emigrated to the USA in 1887.

Comparing family trees to find common last names among ancestors is the main way to figure out how I’m related to other people who match my DNA. I’ve found a couple family trees of DNA matches that have names and dates corresponding to names and dates on my mom's side of my family tree. If I can trust their research, I believe that I’ve found our exact lines of connection.  But finding the line of connection for a DNA match on my mom's side is rare. The custom of changing last names among the Finns makes it anywhere from difficult to impossible to figure out my connections to DNA matches who have Finnish last names or Finnish backgrounds.

Complicating the last name problem is the fact that a Finn whose last name appears in my family tree might have no connection to my family. That person—or an ancestor—might simply have once lived on the same farm as my ancestor. Juuso Hietanen, the Finnish ice hockey star in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, has the same last name my mother grew up with, but he's probably no relation to me.

All my Finn lines come through the Finnish towns of Ylistaro, Kortesjärvi, and Isokyrö, and my maternal grandparents and great-grandparents were all from Fairport Harbor, Ohio. When I find a DNA match who lists an ancestor who was born, married, or died in any of those places, I feel as if we’re oh-so-close to connecting. Is that name a sister, a brother, a cousin, or some sort of blood relation of one of my Finnish ancestors? I long to make the connection, but the name of a town isn’t enough. Without more information, there’s no way to do it. Like Tantalus reaching to pick a luscious fruit in Hades, I can’t reach far enough. The branch is always just beyond my grasp.

It’s not as though my DNA results haven’t listed many people of Finnish descent who are related to me. There are plenty of them—with ancestors named Myllykoski and Walkkila, Niemi and Luoma, Sillanpaa and Rintamaki, and more. But they’re like puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together. These puzzle pieces are lying in plain sight, and I’m sure they’re pieces from the same puzzle I’m working on. But the pieces that connect them are missing.

Maybe one day DNA research will be able to pinpoint connections among relatives with much more accuracy. But until that day, I'll just have to live with the frustration.

My Famous Relatives: Jaakko Ilkka

The 1978 premiere of the opera Jaakko Ilkka by Jorma Panula, with Tuomo Häkkilä, center, in the title role

Most people in the USA won’t recognize the name Jaakko Illka. But in Finland he’s a well-known folk hero, the leader of the Cudgel War of 1596.

I know the name Jaakko Ilkka because he’s my eleven-times-great grandfather, at least according to research by a Finnish cousin of mine. Finnish church records, which have been the legal repositories of birth and marriage announcements, are all that researchers have to rely on. Those records seem to confirm two lines of descent from Jaakko Ilkka to proven ancestors of mine on my mother's side.

One line of descent comes down through my great-grandfather Wilhelm Hirvi, who I’ve written about on this blog before. You can hear a recording of him singing here. 

The other line of descent comes down through my great-great-grandfather Matti Uhmusberg Hietanen, who I’ve written about on this blog here.

Sigismund III by Pieter Claesz. Soutman

In the late 16^th century Finland was a part of Sweden under King Sigismund III.  Sigismund lived in Poland, which he also ruled, so to oversee Finland he appointed a governor, Klaus Eriksson Fleming. At the same time Sweden was overseen by Sigismund’s uncle Kaarle. Governor Fleming of Finland and Duke Kaarle of Sweden did not get along. They vied for power, often at the expense of the poorest of the Finnish peasants.

The people of the Ostrobothnia region of central Finland resented the feudal military tax imposed to help pay for Sweden’s war with Russia. The Ostrobothnians had been legally exempted from this tax during the reign of Sigismund’s father, in return for their defense of Ostrobothnia against the Russians. But when Sigismund took the throne, the exemption was ignored. Crushing taxation—collected, often brutally, by Governor Fleming’s military—only added to the Finnish peasants’ woes, which already included the loss of men drafted to defend the border and poor harvests of the little ice age.  In some places the peasants faced starvation. Small rebellions broke out from time to time, but the taxation continued.

In 1585 Jaakko Ilkka (1545-1597), a farmer, lived with his wife and son in Ilmajoki in Southern Ostrobothnia, Finland. He bred cattle on his farm and became a merchant, shipping his cattle to Sweden. From 1586 through1588 he served as the second sheriff of Ilmajoki. This position increased his prestige and his income. He flourished and became the seventh richest merchant in Southern Ostrobothnia, managing shipping to Sweden, Estonia, and elsewhere.

His first wife died about 1588. He re-married and eventually had three more sons.

In 1591 Jaakko Ilkka joined the army. As a member of the military he was tax-exempt and collected feudal taxes. He participated in three expeditions in Sweden’s war with Russia. By 1593 his military activity stopped. He collected no more taxes from his peasant neighbors. In 1592 Governor Fleming declared a trade embargo in the Gulf of Bothnia. Merchant shipping in the Gulf of Bothnia virtually ceased. Ilkka concentrated on cattle farming.

By late fall of 1594 Sweden and Russia began negotiations to end their war. To support the negotiations Governor Fleming had Swedish troops transported to Finland. The Finnish people, already crushed by military taxes, refused to pay the Swedish forces’ costs. Fleming ordered the military to force collection.

On May 18, 1595, the Treaty of Teusina ended the twenty-five-year Russo-Swedish War. Despite the war’s end, Fleming’s militia continued to collect the feudal tax. Fleming wanted the revenue in order to combat Duke Kaarle’s efforts to take the Swedish crown. But this meant little to the Finnish peasants who lived in fear of being robbed, tortured, and having their homes burned if they could not pay.

Duke Kaarle, later King Charles IX of Sweden.

By late 1595 Duke Kaarle of Sweden was denouncing the oppression of the peasants by Fleming and his military. Encouraged by this, the entire population of Finland’s Ostrobothnia region refused to pay their butter tax.  A small force of Finnish peasants approached Jaakko Ilkka with the idea to take back the grain that had been collected as tax since the end of the war. He agreed to lead them.

On December 24, 1595, while the military was preoccupied with Christmas celebrations, the rebels attacked the Swedish cavalry in Isokyro and Rautalampi. They recovered their grain and drove the soldiers out of the region. But by mid-January 1596, the Swedish military had suppressed the rebellion and arrested Ilkka. He was imprisoned in Turku Castle in Turku, Finland.

Ten months later he escaped. One story says that a draft in his cell led him to a sewer duct that he crawled through to freedom. But the actual duct at Turku Castle is too small for a man to fit inside. Another story says he used a concealed knife to pick mortar from between the stones of his cell wall. He used the holes to climb the wall, then let himself down the other side with a rope made from his coat. A more plausible explanation is that friends, sympathizers, or possibly his second wife’s relatives used their influence to free him.

Unrest among the Finns grew. On November 15, 1596, St. Catherine’s Day, Duke Kaarle sent an emissary to a gathering at the church in Isokyro, Finland, urging the people to fight for their rights. He also sent a shipment of distilled spirits. The men at the church decided to stop paying the feudal tax and to defend themselves with arms. They gathered a small resistance army from all over Finland and named Ilkka their leader. In mid-December three groups of these fighters set out marching south by different routes toward Turku. Jaakko Ilkka and Yrjo Kontsas led the main group of about eight hundred, looting and burning soldiers’ farms and crown-owned properties and gathering adherents along the way.

The spiked cudgels carried by many of the peasants were effective weapons in piercing soldiers’ armor. These instruments gave their name to the rebellion, the Cudgel War—or as it’s known in Finland, Nuijasota.

On December 26, Ilkka and his men, now about 2500 strong, defeated a party of two hundred cavalry soldiers and set up camp in Nokia. On December 31, Governor Fleming attacked the rebels with his army of over 3000 professional soldiers and several cannons. The rebel army defended themselves successfully.

During the night Fleming, having failed to defeat the rebels and realizing that other groups of rebel reinforcements were coming, sent emissaries into Nokia to treat with the rebel leaders. The emissaries offered an end to the feudal tax and safe passage home for the rebels. In exchange they demanded the rebel leaders, particularly Jakko Ilkka. Fearing betrayal, Ilkka and several others fled on horseback into the night.

Now unable to fulfill Fleming’s demands, the rebel army broke up and began to flee. Fleming’s cavalry attacked the fleeing peasants and a massacre was on. Other groups of rebels were also defeated by the military. Peasants were slaughtered until one local governor pointed out that dead peasants could not pay taxes.

Jaakko Ilkka returned to Ilmajoki where he was captured by his neighbors. He was turned over to local governor Abraham Melkiorinpoika, who had orders to transport Ilkka to face Fleming in Turku. However, Melkiorinpoika feared that rebels would succeed in freeing Ilkka during the long trip to Turku. He staged a quick court martial in neighboring Isokyro. Ilkka and five other rebel leaders were sentenced to death.

Jaakko Ilkka’s exact method of execution on January 27, 1597, is unknown. The standard method of the day was to have the hands and feet crushed, the right arm cut off, and then the head severed from the body.  Ilkka’s parts were publicly displayed in Ilmajoki before the rebel army buried him honorably in the local cemetery.

The rebellion continued. The climactic Battle of Santavuori on February 27, 1597, was a disaster for the peasants. Many were brutally slain. The Cudgel War, one of the largest European peasant rebellions, ended in failure for the oppressed. Governor Fleming died a couple months later. Duke Kaarle, who had given lip service to the rebels’ cause but provided little in actual support, eventually became King Charles IX. But little changed in the lives of the peasants.

Duke Kaarle insults the body of Klaus Fleming in 1597, painting by Albert Edelfelt, 1878.

Jaakko Ilkka, the first Finnish freedom fighter, was hailed as a hero.  His example of a common man rising up to lead the fight against injustice has continued to inspire Finland as a nation.

Jaakko Ilkka monument in Ilmajoki, Finland.

Among the memorials to Jaakko Ilkka is a large monument raised in his home town of Ilmajoki in 1924. In 1978 Jaakko Ilkka, an opera by Jorma Panula with a libretto by Aarni Krohn, was first performed at the Ilmajoki Music Festival. A recording of the opera was released in 1979.  A Finnish television production of the opera was broadcast in 1982. The legacy of the Cudgel War has continued in literature, art, and academic studies. Each year since 2003 The Cudgel War has been reenacted at a camp in Kavalahti, Inkoo, Finland. In 2004, viewers of the Finnish television show Great Finns (Suuret suomalaiset) voted Jaakko Ilkka number 75 of the 100 greatest Finns of all time. 

I have no means to double-check the genealogical research that says Jaakko Ilkka is my forebear since I don’t speak or read Finnish and don’t have easy access to the records. But I’m happy to accept my descent from Jaakko Ilkka as true.