Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Wistful Wednesday: Roots Part Two

Last week I wrote about my Great Great Grandmother Briita Liisa, my Great Grandmother Margaretta  was her second child from her second marriage. Later Briita Liisa married Johan Leinonen and they immigrated to America.

It is unclear, but from what we know they did not all travel at once.  Two adults and seven children came to America.

From Verniel : Johan immigrated to America in 1882 and established a farm in section 25 near the Crow River near French Lake Minnesota.  Briita Liisa came on February 8 1883 along with the children.  Note Kaarlo Pietari ( Charley) Leinonen was  Born February 8, 1883. (?? Was Charley born the day they arrived??)

A recollection of Great Uncle Bill…Margaretta’s youngest child: When Johan and Briita sent money to grandma Margaretta to come to Minnesota from Finland.  She told her brother Henry to go, that they would send her a another ticket.  I guess she thought that they might not send him a ticket.  So Henry arrived first.

Anyways Margretta did make it to America and joined her parents in Annandale Minnesota where she met a young man by the name of Isak Yliniemi.  They were married on November 29, 1885. Margaretta would have been 18 years old and Isak would have been 28 years old.

I have a number of old photos from Verniel:

Leinonen and Yliniemi

This is a photo taken in 1930.   Margaretta and Isak my Great Grandparents are in red, their daughter Ethel in pink and the boys Bill, Levi, Joe and Charley in blue.  My Great Grandparents were parents of 13 children…only five are in this photograph.

Andrew, Matt and Maria were all half brothers and sisters of my Great Grandmother, they lived at Annandale so they were probably visiting and just before they left they took a photo.

Long ago taking a photo of visiting relatives out by their car was the thing to do.  That way they had a record of their visitors and could look back and remember the visit.

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16 comments:

linda m said...

You are so fortunate to have all this information about your family. No one in my family ever wrote things down and now with all the elders passed away that information is lost.

DJan said...

I know so little about my own relatives a century ago, but you have all this history preserved for your descendants, too. I wish my parents had done so, too. Mama gave each of us girls a photo album with our ancestors going back to our great grandparents, but no farther. :-)

Anonymous said...

A real treasure.

Cynthia said...

So fun to have these old photos and even a few of the details of the family history. Even the mysteries are interesting. Wonder if Charley was born on the way over and they gave him the birth date of when they arrived, making him an American....

Unknown said...

I have often noticed how many cars were included in pictures made in the past. I think that people were probably very proud of this possession and liked to include it in their picture taking. I wonder if people still do this - or are were so accustomed to cars that we don't do that anymore? One could almost date those old pictures from the cars shown. That's a help anyway.

Shirley H.

Nancy said...

Visitors were lined up by their cars even into the 1980s in my family. I miss that tradition: it was a great way to record history.

Country Gal said...

Such a wonderful photo and to know who is who in it , that's awesome ! Quit the treasure to have ! Thanks for sharing , Have a good day !

Linda Kay said...

The problem is that some of them never put the names on the pictures! My hubby has some from his mother (now deceased) and we have no idea who these people are. You are right...pics by the car.

RURAL said...

You have such a great sense of family history...and that in it's self is a true heirloom. Thank goodness you are keeping the memories alive, because I am realizing just how fragile they are as more and more of our family gets older.

Jen

Primitive Stars said...

How special, wonderful old photo, Blessings Francine.

Sam I Am...... said...

Absolutely wonderful that you have so much information about your relatives. Is that a relative of Chance's (by any Chance...Ha! Ha!) on the right side of the photo?

Red said...

And don't forget, the dog always had to be in the picture. Photos like this give us a vivid description of history.

Rita said...

That really does make you wonder if he was born the day they arrived? Or like Cynthia said--did they give him that birthdate so he'd be an American citizen? Could have been born at sea a days before that?

We have pictures with no names or names just listed and you don't know who is who. Some back to when it was the horse in the picture and there were no cars yet. They liked pictures of the farms and houses in our family. I always wondered if they sent them back to family in the old country--in our case, to Sweden?

thecrazysheeplady said...

Is that a border collie?

L. D. said...

The remarriages really makes for a lot of relatives with different names. The family that came from my German side was really simple to follow until the internet came around. The family thought there were only two brothers. Now with the internet they find out that the first wife had seven children and the two brothers came from the batch. Then the first wife, my relative, died and the gg grandfather remarried and had 7 more half relatives for me to find. I have not even begun to search even though I have the names. My great grandmother on my mom's side was widowed with my great great grandfather passing away so she remarried and gave me another half relatives with five children. I am a visual so I have to put it out on a paper tree like design to understand most of it. You have a lot of fun Finnish names that take careful work to keep the spelling correct. My late wife's family was from Norway so my son's will have to figure out some of those spellings.

Far Side of Fifty said...

Could be but it looks like a bigger Border Collie to me:)